It's Not Worth It
by kenansense
Summary: Will and Lyra make a decision that places all the worlds in jeopardy. Now three Californian pranksters are the only thing that stands between the multiverse and the end of sentience...forever.
1. Midsummer's Day

**It's Not Worth It**

- - - -

Chapter 1- Midsummer's Day

"The intentions of a tool are what it does. A hammer intends to strike, a vise intends to hold fast, a lever intends to lift. They are what it is made for. But sometimes a tool might have other uses that you don't know. Sometimes in doing what you intend, you also do what the knife intends, without knowing."

-Iorek Byrnison, The Amber Spyglass

- - - -

Lyra Silvertongue was in a hurry.

She darted through the streets and alleyways, around the buildings of Jordan College where she used to play with Roger, and then through a series of streets that had become more familiar in the three years since she had saved humankind.

It was five minutes before noon on Midsummer's Day, and Lyra was headed for the Botanic Garden.

- - - -

William Parry had arrived a few minutes early in the Garden in his world, so close to Lyra's world but not quite touching it. He spent the time talking to Kirjava, his beautiful daemon that had been torn out of his heart three years ago.

Three years.

Had it really been that long? It had seemed so much more recently that he and Lyra had parted, by their seaside café in Cittágazze, for the last time. He could still feel Lyra's lips on his, the last kiss they shared together.

Once he had opened the window into his world, and broken the knife, Mary Malone and he had hailed a taxi and headed to Mary's flat. They found it under heavy police guard, along with someMI5 men as well, because what Mary had done-namely feigned identity, then discovered a valuable government secret-was a terrible crime in the government's eyes. If word got out...

So that was why Mary and Will had been immediately told to freeze, and that was why Kirjava hurriedly tried to distract their pursuers while Mary and Will ran away, and that was why they became fugitives, always on the run, determined to protect their right to know what they knew, and to tell others of what they had discovered, in order to create the Republic of Heaven, and keep too much Dust from leaking out through that gap from the world of the dead.

But Will had always done it halfheartedly, missing Lyra, and that was why he always returned to the Botanic Garden at noon on Midsummer's Day, every summer. Will could handle being a fugitive; he was always able to keep inconspicuous. Will could even handle telling others of his experiences; he was strong, he could handle it, sometimes even without bursting into tears when it came time to tell the part about learning of the Dust leakage between windows, and the Specters being created every time a window was made.

And so he had lived for the past three years, with Mary, sometimes sleeping under doorways, sometimes hiding out in bathrooms of buildings, and sleeping there. They were able to sneak food from the covered market of Will's Oxford, which Lyra had remarked looked much more like the "proper Oxford" than they rest of Will's world...

Will was jarred out of his thoughts by his daemon. "She's here," remarked Kirjava, looking at Will's watch.

And Will concentrated hard, and went into the trancelike state that he had used to cut windows with the Subtle Knife, and tried and tried to see Lyra in her world.

But Lyra wasn't quite there yet.

She dashed through the gates of the Garden, hoping that she wasn't too late, and knowing that she was. She felt terrible, like she was letting Will down. She and Pantalaimon jumped onto the bench, and she went into the trancelike state that she tried to use, usually in vain, to read the alethiometer, and tried to picture Will on the bench, and Kirjava next to him...

It wasn't the same, and Lyra felt it wasn't worth it, even to save the worlds, to tear her apart from the love that she had just discovered, and wanted to know for the rest of her life.

- - - -

Once the hour on the bench was up, Will returned to the London Underground, where Mary was waiting. Will's mother, Elaine Parry, was staring absentmindedly at the trains all around them.

"Mother!" Will called to her.

She didn't even turn around, as if she didn't hear him at all.

Mary and Will dragged Mrs. Parry along to the apartment where they were living at the time. It had been abandoned by its previous owners for unknown reasons; however, the landlord didn't know it, so Will and Mary and their daemons could stay there until they were either captured by the police or the landlord realized that the apartment's previous owners hadn't paid their rent for seven months.

Elaine Parry sat down on the couch while Will began to tell his story to Mary, about what he had seen and heard on the bench earlier that day, and about the great decision he had to make.

- - - -

Lyra rushed back to Jordan College, Pantalaimon scurrying behind her. She had dropped out of Dame Hannah's College two years before, because she could not concentrate on her work, and now lived in Jordan College and studied the alethiometer in her spare time. She quickly ran to her room on the fourth floor of the highest tower in all of Oxford, and began to put together what she had seen. She remembered, after about 10 minutes had passed on the bench with nothing happening at all, suddenly she made a connection, in the same way that she had read the alethiometer. She saw Will's face, and his daemon curled up on his lap, but when she tried to speak, no words came out. So she just looked at Will, and he looked at her, for twenty minutes or more before Pantalaimon tried to reach out to Kirjava, and ended up breaking the connection.

But that connection was all that Lyra needed. For her now, nothing or no one existed but Will, and she would spend the rest of her life trying to get back to him, Republic of Heaven or not.

- - - -

Will completed his story, about the connection he made with Lyra, how it was just like searching for a place to cut in the air with the knife, and what he had to do. Immediately after he left Lyra behind, he went searching for the best blacksmith in all of England, to repair the Subtle Knife if ever it was needed. Never before had he thought of using it only to see Lyra again, even though in his mind she was more important than anything else he could use the knife for. He knew that it would make Specters, he knew that it would leak Dust, but none of that mattered anymore. He would have to repair the knife, and use it again to cut windows between his and Lyra's world, closing them quickly afterwards. The Specters-well, he would have to make hundreds of Specters if he continued this for the rest of his life, but the angels could take care of the Specters. They had destroyed hundreds of thousands of them after Will had shown them how to close the windows, why would a hundred more matter?

So Will and his daemon jumped off the couch where they were talking to Mary, who of course disliked the idea, but could do nothing to stop it. They ran to the Underground; they could take the subway to the blacksmith's. Will felt the pieces of the knife in his pocket, and thought of Lyra.

Once they arrived at the blacksmith's, it was almost dusk. Will handed the pieces of the knife to the blacksmith, and asked, "Can you repair this?"

"I don't know," said the blacksmith, "because I have never seen anything like this before. It will take time, I have many other orders in---"

"Please," begged Will. "You don't know, you can't understand, but this knife is the only way that I can ever see my love again."

"How can a knife--"

Will replied, "I will tell you." And so he began to tell the story of His Dark Materials, which pretty much everybody who's reading this has probably heard, so we'll skip over it.

"That is the dumbest crap I have ever heard," said the blacksmith, "but since you took-he checked his watch-three hours out of your schedule to tell me this, I'll repair your knife. Come back in the morning."

Will went home and fell asleep immediately on his bed, dreaming of Lyra.

- - - -

The next morning he woke up very early, and it took him a while to realize why he was feeling so good. He rushed to the blacksmith's as soon as he could to see if the knife was mended.

"I got a bad feeling about this knife as I was mending it," said the blacksmith to Will, "but I did nonetheless. Now I don't know what this knife is capable of, but you be careful with it. And even if you do, this knife has its own intentions..."

"Thank you!" cried Will, and ran out of the shop. Once he got into a shadowy corner, he cut a window into Lyra's world. It wasn't that hard, once he regained his confidence in doing it; he felt like had been doing it all his life. He closed the window behind him immediately, so no Dust would leak out, and set off to find Lyra.

- - - -

Lyra was sitting in her room, working on reading the alethiometer, which had suddenly become easier for her since that Midsummer's Day on the bench. She could now understand all but the most complex answers, although it took her much longer than it had before.

_Where is Will?_, she asked.

The alethiometer replied quickly, _Heading this way._

She jumped up in joy, then waited on her bed, until finally she could wait no more. She ran down the tower, then climbed up on the roofs of the Jordan College buildings, jumping from roof to roof, just like she had done before her adventures had begun. That was where Will found her, hours later; that was where they shared their first kiss in three years, and that was where they slept, that night, gazing up at the stars. In the morning, Lyra told the Master of Will's coming, and he was received with open arms, because he had, after all, saved the world. So Lyra and Will lived together for six years, some of those spent in Lyraâ€™s world, and some in Will's, so neither Pantalaimon nor Kirjava would ever get sick. They got married in the Botanic Garden in Lyra's world, and in attendance were not only the Master and his raven daemon, but also Iorek Byrnison and some of the armored bears of Svalbard, a few members of Serafina Pekkala's witch clan, including Serafina herself; and Mary Malone, who was happiest of all that Will had finally found his love again.

But Will had left a few windows open in his hurry from world to world, and now a problem had begun.


	2. Star Sickness

ï»¿ ﻿

**It's Not Worth It**

Chapter 2- Star Sickness

"_Part of her was subject to this tide that was moving through the cosmos. And so were the mulefa, and so were human beings in every world, and every kind of conscious creature, wherever they were. And unless she found out what was happening, they might all find themselves drifting away to oblivion, everyone."_

-Mary Malone, The Amber Spyglass

- - - -

Kyle Walker woke up to the stream of California sunlight pouring through the window. He groaned with sleepiness as he realized why he had to get up so early—it was the first day of school. He got dressed quickly, then stumbled downstairs to pour himself a bowl of cereal. His mom had left him a note-"Fix yourself breakfast and go to school, I have to work late again."-so he did just that. He pulled on his backpack, got on his bike, and rode to Redwood High School. It was the first day of ninth grade, and he didn't want to miss getting his course schedule.

When he arrived, he picked up his schedule and stopped to talk to his friend Roger.

"Hey Kyle, this year is going to be the best one yet," said Roger. "I stopped to talk to Jason, everything's ready, now we just have to find a stupid enough teacher to pull our prank on."

"Our homeroom teacher, Mrs. Whatshername, Beatty, Betty…everyone said she's a complete retard. They say you can hit her in the ass three times with a piece of crumpled up paper and she won't even notice. You can use the same piece of paper—throw it, go back up and get it, throw it again—and as long as she's teaching class, she can't even tell."

"Perfect," said Roger, smiling, "she won't know what hit her."

Just then, the bell rang, sending students scurrying off to try and find their homeroom classes. Kyle found his homeroom teacher pretty easily, but then he'd always been pretty good with directions. He slipped into the desk next to Roger's just as the teacher turned around.

"Well, it's always nice to see the new ninth graders," said his teacher. "My name's Mrs. Biddy ("Not even close," said Roger), and I'll be your homeroom and English teacher for the next year. Now, I know that I have gotten a bit of a reputation of being very involved in my teaching—Kyle snickered loudly—but I want you all to know that although I am not very involved in what goes on while I'm not teaching, you will all learn a little something this year. Okay, dears? Now open your books to page 112—oh sorry, 107, I was on the wrong page there..."

"It's perfect! Priceless!" exclaimed Roger. "We pull the prank at the Halloween party."

Mrs. Biddy droned on and on, getting half the word spellings wrong herself and constantly having to check her answer key, until mercifully the bell rang, signaling the start of second period. His second period was Algebra I, and he prepared himself for what was said to be the most boring class in all of Redwood High School—and given Mrs. Biddy's teaching style, that was something special. Right before class started, though, Kyle felt a weird feeling in his head, almost as if he was standing at the top of a large cliff. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he found himself drifting away from his body. Something was pulling him...but he could see himself right there, in class, blank-eyed...

Kyle blacked out.

- - - -

It wasn't until 4th period-P.E.-that Roger found out Kyle was missing from class. Jason told him that Kyle just blacked out in math class for no apparent reason. Kyle's math class had been momentarily evacuated, because everyone thought that some poisonous gas may have been released into the room—but testing showed everything was fine, so class resumed, and no one else blacked out, as far as Roger knew.

In P.E. they were running sprints, so Roger got in line between Jason and some new kid named Carl, and waited his turn.

"So who are you, then?" asked Carl in front of him.

"Oh, I'm Roger, only the best prankster that Redwood school district has ever seen," replied Roger.

"Really?" said Carl. "Can I see your work?"

"Come to the Halloween party next month, and you will," said Roger mysteriously. Roger was very proud of his pranks, but he didn't know Carl, and telling him the plan beforehand might blow his chances of pulling it off.

The coach's whistle blew, and Carl in front of him took off. Carl was a pretty fast runner, thought Roger. Once Carl finished he turned around and walked back to where Roger was standing. Carl was sweating ferociously. The whistle blew again, and Roger took off, but he was one of the few that did. Everyone else was staring at Carl, whose eyes suddenly went blank, and who then blacked out.

Everyone was sent home from school, but investigators came and couldn't find anything wrong with Redwood High School. There was plenty of oxygen, no poisonous gases—although there was a slightly high presence of carbon monoxide, it was nothing that would bring down two perfectly normal, healthy kids. Two days passed, and still nothing unusual was found at the school, so all students were sent back. But five more students didn't return to school, and this time Jason was among them. Roger went over to Jason's house to see if Jason was sick. His mom said that Jason had just passed out, for no reason, while he was skateboarding at the skatepark behind his house. He had been sent to the hospital, along with Kyle, Carl, and the other four students who had the same thing happen to them. Then news of the mysterious illness spread throughout the nation and even the world. It was called "star sickness" because the victims' consciousness seemed just to float high up into the sky. Many experts were called, but none could figure out what was happening, and the only three people who knew of it were in another universe, blissfully unaware.

- - - -

Will and Lyra sat on the bench in the Botanic Garden and talked about their previous adventures, arguing about who found who first, or who was braver. Their daemons were entwined at their feet, Pantalaimon and Kirjava sharing their love with one another. It was their tenth anniversary, and they were now living in Lyra's world, after passing their first six years in Will's world. Pantalaimon had been feeling badly, but was getting better now, and everything looked good for them, until they first heard of the mysterious sickness in which people's minds seemed to just drift away. Called the Driftbreeze, or just the "Drifts" in Lyra's world, it was almost as big a problem in her world as in Kyle and Roger's. When Mary Malone had first heard about it, she knew exactly what had happened, and she tried to tell Will and Lyra about it, but she couldn't bring herself to. And besides, she thought, nobody had died, everyone had woken up...but they had behaved so strangely...

Probably nothing, she figured, just shock. So she couldn't ruin the two lovers' lives; they did, after all, save the world.

So the Dust leakage went unnoticed, and Will and Lyra went uninformed, and the worlds drifted closer and closer to oblivion.

Roger woke up on Halloween feeling pretty good about himself. His friends Kyle and Jason, although still in the hospital, were showing more life signs, and were expected to wake up soon. He would still pull the prank that night on Mrs. Biddy, then when his friends woke up, he could tell them about it, and they would all have a good laugh at her stupidity, and everything would be back to normal.

That was how Roger pictured it.

But in other parts of his world, the sickness was spreading even more, and the scientists were no closer to finding a cure for it. The President of the United States was now getting personally involved, as his Secretary of State had come down with the mysterious star sickness right in the middle of a very important meeting, and blacked out, face-down on the table. The nation's best research scientists were summoned to diagnose him, and they confirmed that he had the mysterious star sickness, but they had no cure, not even a reason for the sickness. All body signs were still there, the brain was still working, but something had happened to their consciousness, and, although the scientists didn't like to get involved with this type of thing, it seemed as though the victims had lost their souls.

But the first star sickness victim, Kyle Walker, was drawing even closer to waking up, and he could provide them with a lot more information.

- - - -

Roger met up with his group of friends that day at school, minus Jason and Kyle, and set up the plan for the prank.

It would be Jeff's job to lure Mrs. Biddy outside, somehow, and given her stupidity, it would probably be pretty easy. From there, it would be Roger, Ryan, and Matthew's job to put the blindfold on her and subdue her if she tried to get away. From there, they would drag her into the forest behind the school; it was a huge clump of trees, stretching fifteen miles or so, and was said to be haunted.

Once Mrs. Biddy got out, Roger was sure that she would be so afraid of her students that she may even quit her teaching job. And the best part was, she wouldn't even know who did it.

After school, they met up at Matthew's house to discuss final plans and get the materials (just the blindfold and masks so they wouldn't be discovered before they put on the blindfold). Finally the time of the party came, and they walked to school with a large group of kids, and hoped nobody would notice the supplies they had dumped right by the entrance to the forest.

The teachers met the students by the entrance to the school, and welcomed them to the Halloween party.

"There will be a hayride, pumpkin carving, and party games on the other side of the school," said Mrs. Bean, the principal, over the loudspeaker. "At least it keeps the kids off the streets...hey, is this thing still on? SHIT! click"

All the students had a good laugh, and then split up depending on what games they wanted to play. But Jeff proceeded into the school, where Mrs. Biddy was working at her desk, dressed in a witch costume.

"Please, Mrs. Biddy, you've got to come with me," said Jeff. "One of the students has been hurt, and we know you're the only one in the school who's smart enough to save him, please, Mrs. Biddy," he said. Mrs. Biddy, being generally a complete moron, followed him, basking in the apparent attention and admiration that she was getting, which was exactly what Jeff intended. Once they came out the back door, Roger and Ryan slipped the bag over her head, while Matthew grabbed her arm and began to drag her into the forest. Once they had come far enough (about two miles in), they left Mrs. Biddy there, asking in a high voice, "Is this a surprise? Mrs. Bean, is that you? I always though I deserved something special for my hard work..." Then he said to Matthew, "Okay, now let's see that map and get out of here."

But Matt was lying on the ground next to him, face down, and the map was nowhere in sight.

"Oh, crap," said Roger angrily.

- - - -

Using the Amber Spyglass, Mary Malone had charted the progress of the escaping Dust ever since the Driftbreeze had first been reported in Lyra's Oxford. What she had found was that, surrounding Lyra and Will, a Dust cloud of mythic proportions swirled and thrived. Some of that Dust was escaping into the air, and nourishing the consciousness of the people around them. For this reason, the Driftbreeze had not been as bad in Lyra's world, in fact had been so invisible that Lyra and Will, love-stricken even after 10 years, didn't even notice it at first. But one day as Mary was watching out the window with her spyglass, she saw someone stricken with the Driftbreeze stumbling around, and decided to observe him with the Spyglass, this being the first time she had done so. As the man blacked out, she watched the Dust cloud around him shimmer and disappear into nothing, as she had expected. But she noticed something different, something special.

Even as the man was still thrashing around, his daemon, a tawny fox, was lying on the ground, eyes closed, showing no signs of life.

- - - -

Roger, Matt and Ryan had been wandering through the forest for a few hours now, looking for an exit, but just seeming to draw even closer to the center of the forest. Finally, they had to stop to rest, knowing that now even Mrs. Biddy would probably find her way back before they could, and they would be in big trouble.

They all took seats on big rocks, and Roger had begun to describe their situation when suddenly he glimpsed a shimmering in the air. He beckoned Matt and Ryan over, then viewed the shimmering from another angle. It was not just a small disturbance, as he had thought, but it was as if a large patch of air had simply been cut out, and where there should have been trees and foliage there was instead a large city square that would have looked perfectly ordinary, except everyone that Roger could see had some sort of animal with them, and some of these animals were talking.

"Come on," said Roger, "it can't be any worse than what we're leaving behind."

So Roger and his two friends left the world they were born in and followed the window into Lyra's world.


	3. Dæmons

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**It's Not Worth It**

Chapter 3 – Dæmons

- - - -

In Will and Roger's world, the first star sickness victims were beginning to wake up, and among them was Roger's friend Kyle Walker. He was a little groggy, but all his body functions seemed fine, and nothing was physically wrong with him. News crews from around the world gathered in that small hospital room to cover his awakening, but only a few were able to obtain interviews.

The first interviewer, CNN, asked a few brief questions about what he remembered about his fainting in math class. He replied that he couldn't remember anything, which was expected.

It wasn't until after the camera had shut off that the trouble started. The CNN reporters were trying to make small talk with Kyle to remove the anxiety that being on camera caused.

"Well, you should probably stay away from math for the rest of your life, then," joked one reporter.  
Kyle, who had his math homework set out on the table, immediately began ripping it up, an indifferent look on his face.

"Hey, kid, I didn't mean it! Stop it," said the reporter, and Kyle stopped.

Nobody but the CNN reporter had noticed the unusual behavior, but the reporter realized that he may have stumbled across something bigger than he had thought.

"Stand on your head, Kyle," said the reporter, and Kyle did so perfectly. When told to stop, he did.

By then all the reporters in his room had noticed, and word quickly spread. When a few of the other Redwood High School students woke up, doctors confirmed that they all exhibited this strange behavior.

And so the world of America, dæmonless humans, and cinemas realized that the mysterious star sickness had to be stopped, or the human race may cease to exist.

- - - -

Roger and Ryan walked through the town square that they had seen through the window, supporting the unconscious Matthew on each of their shoulders. He saw each human he passed look at him strangely, as if he had no head, and the animals all of them seemed to carry with them crept inside their shirts as if they were scared at the very sight of him.

Roger asked one of the residents where he could find the town mayor, or leader. He was pointed in the direction of a large house on top of a hill. From there he was directed immediately to an old man sitting in a rusty chair.

"Welcome, child. What is it you need?"

"Excuse me sir, but everyone seems to think I'm weird because I don't have one of those talking-animal things. What are they, and where can I get one? I'm new in this town..."

"You're new in this world," said the old man.

Roger stared at him with a look of extreme surprise on his face.

- - - -

At around 8:30 in the evening in Roger's hometown of Redwood, California, a special announcement from the President was aired on every major news channel. It stated that the mysterious star sickness, which Redwood residents had already heard way too much about, had a strange side effect that wasn't even scientifically possible. It seemed to destroy its victims'—the President hesitated before saying it anyway—their souls. He assured his country that scientists had been searching for a possible cure for months now, and that one would almost certainly be found before any large portion of the human race could catch the illness. He also urged them not to panic and to go on with their normal lives. Nothing, most likely, would change.

He had little idea how wrong he was.

- - - -

The old man that Roger had found began to explain.

"Two young lovers came to this town on their honeymoon, and they brought with them a middle-aged woman, who seemed to be a very close friend. But what was unusual about the woman was that she had no dæmon."

At this point Roger interrupted, "Demon? You mean like the servants of the Devil? Wouldn't it be **good** not to—"

"No," said the old man, "I have never heard of that demon. But the dæmon I speak of—you're sure you've never heard of dæmons before?" asked the old man shakily.

"Never," said Roger.

"The dæmon I speak of is the physical embodiment of your soul, in animal form. dæmons are your companion for your whole life—your friend, advisor, conscience—they're the one thing that gives people their own free will. And you don't have one, yet you seem just fine. Just like that strange woman…I talked to one of the honeymooners—the girl, Lara was her name. Or Laura, I forget, she had a bit of an accent. And she told me that in the woman's world, dæmons were inside the body, not out. So the people went through their entire life without knowing their own souls. That would be terrible..."

"That sounds like my world," said Roger. "And I bet that woman was from my world, too. There must be other windows like the one I came through..."

"Most likely," said the old man. "But now it is your turn to act. I am the village shaman, Jule."

"Shaman? Kind of like a witch, then? Weird world this is…this doesn't sound like America to me."

"I could say the same about your world. And I have never heard of any America. But listen. There are whispers in the air, whispers of your name, and of a destiny for you. Nine years ago, destiny was supposed to be brought to an end, but was not due to the greed of the very people who were supposed to save us. Now it is your turn to put a stop to destiny, and to save the worlds from the terrible result of those young people's greed: the Driftbreeze. You may not have this in your world, but it is a mysterious illness..."

"...where people's souls seem to just drift away," finished Roger. "Star sickness...so it affects people everywhere. And you say this dæmon-thing is my soul? So star sickness kills my dæmon?  
Then what about Kyle? And Jason? My friends who have star—sorry, Driftbreeze," he explained to a confused Jule. "What will happen to them?"

"I cannot forsee this," said Jule, "but I can at least guide you a little. In the northern reaches of our world there is a place known well by witches but almost completely unknown by humans. Some unholy power has touched this place, and witches use it for a purpose which I do not know. But to find your dæmon, you must travel through this place. This much I know. It will be terrible, and you will experience both physical and spiritual pain, but when you emerge you will have a lifelong companion, and she will be your guide in the adventure that you must go through."

"Physical and spiritual—but how do I get there?" asked Roger.

"Olum'diaye—that's our town--is very near the ocean—that's what makes it such a popular honeymooning spot. Travel to the west parts of this town, then book passage on a ship headed for Oferic, near the pole. From there head northeast for about 30 miles until you come to a mountain range in a circular formation. In the center of that range is a barren wasteland. This is the place that you are seeking." He handed Roger a map. "This map will help guide you as well. I have marked your destination on it."

"Thank you, Jule," said Roger. "I will always be grateful for your advice."

- - - -

So Roger began his adventure, which would eventually, he hoped, end with a happy reunion with his family and friends in his own world, a world that would not be plagued with star sickness once he was finished.

The scientists in Will and Roger's world came no closer to even figuring out what was the cause of star sickness, much less what the cure would be.

And Lyra and Will, oblivious to it all, continued their normal lives at their house near Jordan College in the world Roger was currently in, too absorbed in their love for each other to realize what was going on around them, and the disaster that only the bearer of the subtle knife could keep from happening.

- - - -

Mary glanced out the window with the spyglass one more time, but she knew anyway that it was true. She would have to tell Will and Lyra, and in doing so destroy their romance. And it would be so much harder now that they had been married so long...she should have told them earlier.

She should have warned Will against repairing the knife, should have stopped him from opening the window. If she had done so, it would have been so much easier. Now she even felt a little afraid of what Will would do. He was kind normally, but ever since she had met him she had felt that he was not one to mess with.

What she had seen with the spyglass for the past few days—the apparently dying dæmons, the Driftbreeze becoming stronger, and the Dust once again flowing horizontally instead of falling down vertically like it was supposed to. She could almost feel Atal in the world of the mulefa, crying out to the heavens. The seeds she had planted in the backyard of Lyra and Will's house, which had once grown strong, had withered and died, and she knew that it was happening in all the other worlds as well. Matter loved Dust, she had once discovered, and now it was being lost once again.

Well, it wouldn't be easy to break up a marriage that full of love, but she could do it.  
She got up slowly and began to walk the fifteen miles to the Botanic Gardens. When she arrived, she ran to the bench where Will and Lyra were sitting, her alpine chough dæmon, named Tilim, fluttered behind her.

"Will, Lyra, I have something to tell you," she said gently. Will put his arm around Lyra, and they looked at Mary attentively.

"I hate to be the one to do this...but I have to tell you something important. The Dust is once again seeping out of the worlds."

"No!" screamed Will. "Not again! I won't lose her again!"

Lyra and Pantalaimon stood up quickly. "Wait," she said, "maybe there's something else we can do. Remember when we made that connection on the bench, before you came to my world for the second time? The angels said there is another way of traveling, 'like imagination, but much truer'. That must be it! We could try it more often, maybe eventually we could talk to each other, somehow..."

"Do you think I could bear that?" asked Will. "Being married to you for nine years, then having to settle for just seeing each other, maybe talking? No, there must be some other way! Damn it, Mary, why did you have to tell us? Didn't you think that we were content, not knowing?"

"Because people are falling unconscious out there on the streets all around you!" shouted Mary. "I watched through the spyglass, and people are losing their Dust! Their dæmons are falling unconscious! And is any love worth robbing people of their dæmons?"

"Maybe," breathed Will, "maybe ours is."

Grabbing Kirjava, he ran off out of the garden gates. Lyra followed timidly, the pine marten Pantalaimon on her shoulders.

"Well that didn't go too well," sighed Mary.

- - - -

Roger sat out on the deck of the _Coral_, watching the waves go by. He had been sailing for about a month now, along with several other people, and he immediately learned how terrible it was thought to be not to have a visible dæmon. He had gotten to know one of the less superstitious passengers (a retired seaman named Philip who had an albatross dæmon), and was told that wherever he went in this world, he would find dæmons.

Ryan, on the other hand, was getting seasick, and Matt was still unconscious, although slightly stirring, so both of them remained below deck as Roger obtained all the information that he could about their destination, and about dæmons.

"It's as natural to talk to your dæmon as it is to breathe," he explained to Roger, when he asked what people thought about talking to themselves. "We keep humans from doing anything that they may regret later. When Philip and I first saw you, we thought you was a ghast, or worse." This was from the albatross dæmon, and even though Roger was prepared to see dæmons talk, this was the first time one had talked to him, and he felt shocked all the same.

"I was told by a shaman that I was supposed to go to an area far in the north, known well by the witches," explained Roger, "and that was where I would find my dæmon. Do you know anything about this place?"

"Just rumors," said Philip, "about a place where dæmons would not go. So I don't know how you would find your dæmon there, but I would trust the shaman. Jule's always told the truth, and often he's conjured up a good wind to fill my sails when I would go on long journeys, or healed me and Astoria when he returned from them."

"So how are dæmons born?" asked Roger. "Are they just there when you are born, or do they appear to you bit by bit?"

"Well, my mother's dæmon named mine at birth, so I assume that they are 'born' along with you. But they just appear out of the air, rather than coming out of the womb," replied Philip. "You know, I'm beginning to think that you have a dæmon after all, separate from yourself. Because you're always so inquisitive, and you definitely have your own free will."

"Do dæmons eat? Or are they nourished when you eat?" asked Roger.

"Well, that's a hard question. dæmons do eat, that's for sure, but my Astoria hasn't eaten in a few months, and we're just fine. So dæmons can eat for pleasure, but it's probably not necessary. I guess what really nourishes dæmons is Dust."

"You mean like the dust on furniture when it's not cleaned? How can that nourish dæmons?"

"Not that dust. Don't tell me you don't know Dust...it was the main part of a huge Church investigation years ago. The General Oblation Board...well, nobody really knows what they did, but it concerned Dust, and it was terrible, that's for sure. They are particles in the air…the very basic particles, those that nourish consciousness. And dæmons are pretty much consciousness, your soul, so without Dust dæmons will wither away, and people will lose their free will."

Just then, the cry of "Land ho!" was heard from the crow's nest, and Roger knew that they had almost arrived in Oferic.

He climbed below deck to get his things, which consisted of pretty much what was left of the money and the map that Jule the shaman had given him, showing him where his destination was.

"So Ryan, do you want to come with me when I go through this place to find my dæmon?" he said to his friend.

"Of course I do. Don't think that I would just sit behind while you got a lifelong companion," Ryan replied jokingly.

"Seriously though, it'll be pretty hard. Jule said that there'll be physical and spiritual pain—"

"Don't you think I know that? When did you get to be so protective and serious about all this? I can take care of myself. And besides, I can't wait to see what my dæmon will be. I wonder if we can take it back into our world?"

"Alright," said Roger. Most of his friends were pretty stubborn, he'd forgotten that. After they had picked up their things, and found a spare stretcher to carry Matt on, they waited until the ship docked, then climbed out onto the docks of Oferic. They immediately found an inn, for they were tired, and their journey could wait until tomorrow.


	4. Through the Blizzard

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**It's Not Worth It**

Chapter 4 - Through the Blizzard

- - - -

Roger and Ryan woke up the next morning to a stream of rare Northern sunlight pouring through the window of their inn. Roger groaned and rolled over sleepily, but Ryan leaped out of his bed and shook Roger awake.

"What, what is it?" he groaned sleepily, propping himself up on one elbow.

"Get up, today's the day we have to set off for that witches' place," replied Ryan. "I hope my daemon's something cool..."

"What time is it?" Roger grunted.

"Almost 10:00, at home, but I don't know what time in this world."

"Probably about the same here," said Roger, "so we should be going. It'll be a good walk to the middle of those mountains." They quietly packed their things, placed Matt back on the stretcher, and set off to the northeast.

- - - -

Will and Lyra raced back home to their house, a few blocks from the botanical gardens, to think about what they had heard.

"Maybe we have to go back to our worlds," said Lyra. "All the people with the Driftbreeze...and I never knew...but I could never really let you go, Will, you know that, we can still visit each other on the bench..."

"No!" cried Will. "I already lost you once, now nothing will make me leave you. D'you think I could bear it, being your husband for so long, then having to let you go again? It was hard enough last time, but I can't do it again."

"Will, you're not even thinking about all those poor people that lost their daemons to the Drifts! I want to spend time with you just as much as you want to spend time with me, but it would be so hard, living our lives knowing we're causing so much pain!" Lyra exclaimed.

"We couldn't do it in our separate worlds though! Build the Republic of Heaven, I mean. We would be too busy grieving over each other to even think about it."

"Maybe you're right, maybe we could build the Republic together, produce enough Dust to help stop the Driftbreeze...but I dunno if I could do it, Will, I really don't."

Will wordlessly slid into bed, not even looking at Lyra, and soon after fell asleep.

- - - -

The map that Jule had given them proved very useful to Roger and Ryan. Without it, they wouldn't have known which way to go, as they didn't have a compass, and snow showers were beginning to decrease their visibility. They had made it past the outskirts of the town, giving them plenty of time to think as they began to scale the mountains.

Roger missed Kyle, Jason, and Matt. Even though Matt was right there, he missed his company. But most of all, he missed his family. He had left them behind in Redwood, California, in his world, and now with just the company of Ryan he felt lonely. Climbing the desolate mountaintop, with no towns or anything in sight—it felt like Roger and his companions were the only people left in the world.

He was jarred out of his thoughts by Ryan, who was beginning to speculate on what kind of daemons that they and people they know might have. "You never know until you actually see them," he said. "Most people would think that they have a lion or something for a daemon and instead have it turn out to be a mouse."

Roger laughed halfheartedly. "But most people in our world have lost touch with their daemons. All those terrorist attacks...those people have probably never even thought about their soul or their conscience, ever."

"I guess you're right," said Ryan. "So what do you think our daemons will be like?"

"Who knows?" replied Roger. "I'm just hoping that mine will like me, or maybe know something that would help us find the cause of star sickness..."

"Your daemon IS you," Ryan pointed out obviously. "So of course it will like you, and I don't think it will know anything you don't."

"Still, maybe I know something that I don't know I know...you know?"

"I know," said Ryan, and they both had a good laugh. "Seriously, though, d'you think that people's daemons are really like them? I bet Mrs. Biddy's would be a lemming, she'd jump off a cliff if someone told her to."

"Or maybe one of those birds that fly into windshields, or something that stupid."

They had just begun to laugh when suddenly Matt began to stir. Instantly they dropped the stretcher into the snow and kneeled down by his side.

"Go on, wake up," Roger urged. Matt let out a sleepy groan and then sat up in the stretcher.

"Stand up, see how you're doing," he said, and Matt did so. "Man, you should never sleep again," Roger joked, "you were asleep for weeks!"

"I—will—never—sleep—again," Matt replied in a monotonous, indifferent voice.

"Oh, right," said Roger angrily, when Ryan asked what was wrong. "I should have told you earlier—star sickness kills a person's daemon, or at least puts it into a deep sleep. And without his daemon, Matt won't really have any free will."

Ryan's expression registered shock, then acceptance. "So everyone who came down with star sickness...will be like this? Like Kyle, and those other kids?"

"Yeah," said Roger sadly. "That's what we've got to do, see if we can fix this—problem—and hope that by stopping Dust leaking out of the worlds, we can stop everyone in the world from looking like this."

"Damn," uttered Ryan, "That might even be worse than just blacking out, imagine if someone was able to use the people who were sick—make them do whatever they were told, even commit crimes..."

"Hadn't thought of that," admitted Roger. "We better hurry, before something like this destroys our world." He told Matt to follow him, and they all walked in silence for a while—Matt's out of apathy, Ryan and Roger's out of thoughtfulness—until they had reached the top of the mountain.

Looking down, Ryan and Roger gasped at what they saw.

All around them, especially near the mountains, snow flurries were just beginning. But inside the walled-off area they saw stretched out in the huge valley below them, a seemingly endless blizzard was falling. A dark power seemed to emanate from the place, and Roger and Ryan felt a part of them rebel against entering this place. But the moment passed, and they gathered the courage to hike down the mountainside and into the unholy place where no non-witch had ever gone before, nor wanted to.

Roger and Ryan walked up to the walled-off area uneasily, unsure of what they would find. However, as they came over the last ridge and the area began to flatten out, they could see that there was a gate where they could enter it. They walked up to the gate.

Suddenly, Roger felt a sudden urge to turn around, leave the place immediately. Physical and spiritual pain, the shaman Jule had said. Those words flashed through Roger's mind, and he couldn't escape their horror—

Before he had realized it, Roger had turned around and begun to walk away. He caught himself and looked over at Ryan, who was struggling to regain control of himself as well.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, fine," replied Ryan. "But what—"

"Something doesn't want us to go in there," whispered Roger. "But Jule said we had to, so—"

Ryan had begun to walk away again, and Roger had to grab his friend to keep him from leaving him standing there, in front of that dark, endless snowy plain.

"Thanks," said Ryan. "Yeah, we need to find our daemons, no matter what! For all those people with star sickness, right? For Jason and Kyle!"

With that thought to sustain them, they were able to approach the gate. A huge gust of wind kicked up, trying to blow them away, but they stood strong, and grabbed on to the gate. They creaked it open slowly, then stepped into the unholy place.

- - - -

Suddenly, the gate slammed behind them. They were trapped! And Roger felt a horror, something was definitely wrong. He felt a yanking at his ribs, a sudden empty spot where something that should have been there wasn't, though he figured that all his body parts were still there.

And then the wave of mental anguish rushed over him. He felt as though his whole family had died, and he had caused it—

No, something even worse. A terrible emptiness, a terrible loneliness, like he was the only person on Earth, and somehow didn't even have himself for company...

And then a feeling of wrongness came over him. Something was out in the open, something that had been hidden for years, it was like all his secrets had been told to the whole world...

His soul! His daemon, the thing that kept him alive, the thing that Matt had lost to star sickness, it was gone!

And then he realized the horror of what he had just done, and he screamed out loud.

But the sudden, unexpected noise jarred him back to reality, and he was suddenly back standing in front of the gate, inside the forbidden place, and now he understood.

Physical and spiritual pain...

If he thought he had felt pain before, it was nothing compared to what he felt now. Something was in horrible pain, something he didn't even know he had, and he felt that dying would have been better than what lay ahead of him. He had done everything wrong in the world, and worse—he had broken the bond between himself and his daemon, something that could never be done. And now he would pay for it.

Jule knew, he realized in a burst of fury. He knew, the monster, the jackass, he sent us here, he knew we would go through this, thought it would be worth it, to save the world—but right now, it didn't feel like he would go through such terrible things even to prevent star sickness from claiming everyone...

No daemons could ever go here, Philip had said aboard the ship. In passing through the gate, he had been ripped from his daemon, but now she was visible, yet separate somehow. Once he passed through the other side of this horrible place, the test would be over, and he would regain his daemon.

He focused on that, and looked over at Ryan. He was lying in the snow, not even screaming or crying, just understanding, as Roger had.

Then he looked at Matt, and was surprised at what he found. Matt was screaming out loud—the first thing he had done for himself since he had passed out on Halloween, months ago. Roger was thinking, hard—the jolt when his daemon was separated from him must have awakened her, somehow. And now Matt's free will would come back, hopefully. He would be just like Roger or Ryan, their daemons gone, but still alive, and as long as their daemons were conscious their free will remained.

So he sat and waited for Ryan and Matt to regain themselves. Ryan got up, slowly, and nodded to Roger. "Let's go."

"Wait, I think Matt's snapping out of it," said Roger.

And Matt got up a few minutes later, shaking his head.

"Roger? Ryan? What happened, man?" he asked curiously.

"You...got star sickness," said Ryan hesitantly.

"What? Then how come I'm okay? What happened to me?"

"You were like a zombie, Matt," replied Roger slowly. "You had no free will, and that's what star sickness does to its victims, once they wake up."

"What?" asked Matt. "How come I don't remember any of this?"

"You seemed like you didn't care about anything...you just did what you were told. And unless we stop this star sickness somehow, everyone will be like this eventually."

"I had no idea—we better go," said Matt. "But...where are we going?"

"Out of this place, to find our daemons—that's like our souls, the physical representation of them, anyway. But they're all animals, in this world."

"This world?" gasped Matt. "Man, how long was I sleeping?"

"Right, you know that prank we were going to pull, on Mrs. Biddy?"

"Yeah, I remember that," said Matt.

"Well, we took her into the forest, and you had the map," said Roger. "But you blacked out, and we lost the map. So we found a window, in midair, and in opened into this world, and everyone here has a daemon."

"So we're supposed to find these demon-thingies here?"

"Yeah, that's what that old man told us, Jule." Roger responded. "We met him in the city we came into. And he's the town leader, a shaman, he can tell the future, and he said—here he took a deep breath—he said that I'm kind of like the chosen one. And I have to save the world from this star sickness. Wow, that sounds like a load of crap when you just say it like that, but you have to believe me, Ryan was there too, he'll tell you."

"No, I believe you," said Matt. "So, how long will it take us to get through here?"

"I dunno," said Roger. "But listen, we were all separated from our daemons as we came through that gate—he pointed at a spot in the snow, then slowly lowered his finger—can't see it now, but our daemons were ripped from our bodies. So this will be pretty hard on us, not just because it's cold, but because we lost our souls."

"Geez," said Matt. "Well, let's get walking."

And so the three friends continued their journey through the endless blizzard, stopping occasionally to rest or eat from their food packs. They had to eat snow to get enough water, and it was hard going the first day, but after they stopped and got a good night's rest, they seemed okay.

On they went. The second day Matt and Roger both got frostbite—Matt on his toe, Roger on his pinkie finger—but there was nothing they could do about it now, and they didn't really care about that anyway, just that they had lost their daemons. They stopped constantly, and would break down, moaning about how wrong what they had done was, and how if they could they would go back and never go through that window in Redwood, California, in Roger's world, they would, but they couldn't change that.

A few days later, they had almost adjusted to the endless snow, and even broke down less frequently. But one thing they couldn't get used to was the loneliness—without even their daemons, that tiny voice of reason in their head, they felt like they were the only people on a wasted Earth.

Finally, on the seventh day, Ryan just fell down out of exhaustion. He had to be carried along, as they had left the stretcher Matt was on back by the gate, and it was even harder work walking through the snow carrying their friend along. They checked him for star sickness, but he muttered every now and then and showed signs of life. Besides, in this place without daemons, was it even possible to get star sickness?

- - - -

On the thirteenth day, Roger and Matt woke up in the middle of the night for seemingly no reason. Roger felt like nothing but sleep, but Matt said, "Hang on a second, it's gotta be something," and walked west in the direction of the mountains they were surrounded by.

Ryan had almost fallen asleep again when he heard the avalanche.

It started as a low rumbling in the distance. Then suddenly, Roger, looking up at the mountains, could see a huge sheet of ice and snow fall down the mountain. It seemed to happen in slow motion; there was no predicting it.

"Matt!" Roger called, but Matt was either too far away to hear his call or not even conscious.

"Matt!" he called again, and ran in the direction of the now complete avalanche.

He was shocked to hear a shouting noise from the sky. When he looked up, he saw the witches.

There were maybe hundreds of them, flying all together in the sky over the place where Roger and his friends were merely trespassers. When Jule had talked about this place being known to witches, he didn't even notice, or maybe he figured that Jule was maybe just a little crazy and was picturing things.

He rubbed his eyes and looked up at the sky again, but there was no mistaking it, those were witches. He moved forward in the snow, in the direction of the now complete avalanche.

Hoping and praying that he hadn't lost his friend, he looked all around, even dug a little in the fresh snow, but he soon realized that his search was fruitless. His friend would either live, or he would die, but Roger couldn't find him.

Oh no, first my daemon, then Ryan, now Matt, Roger thought. He shook his head and told himself to be practical. To get out of this place he would have to use his brain. He walked back to their sleeping spot (which was only a few feet behind him), grabbed Matt's and his food bags, lifted Ryan up on his back, and continued on into the snow.

A few hours on (or maybe minutes, Roger couldn't tell) the blizzard lifted slightly, and Roger thought that, just for an instant, he had found the exit. The blizzard kicked up again, and as Roger walked in the direction that he had seen the sunlight poking through the clouds, there was no doubt about it, the exit was right ahead of him!

Roger jumped for joy and swung his fist around in the air, then grabbed Ryan and the food and ran for the exit.

But suddenly he felt the cold on his skin, inside him, everywhere, and then his head was spinning.

Exhaustion, he thought, not now, please not now...

He could see the light in front of him now; it bathed the land in front of him in brightness, so it seemed like a holy land in front of him. But at the same time, he felt his body weakening even more...

He saw the break in the wall, and was just beginning to move toward it, when suddenly the cold overtook him. He fell down on the ground in front of him, unconscious, and Ryan and the food bags fell to the snow.

- - - -

_Roger was sitting in a large building, of ancient architecture. He looked around curiously, noticing the large dinner table set out in front of him. _

"_You're not taking this seriously," whispered his daemon. "Behave yourself."_

_His daemon, in the form of a moth, moved ahead to look out for anyone coming._

_All clear, Pantalaimon thought to him, and the words rang out in his mind as clearly as if they had been spoken., Suddenly he was looking through the eyes of a young girl, and she was moving forward into a smaller room, lit by a fireplace, with glasses of wine set out on a table in the middle._

_The Retiring Room, he knew, somehow. _

_Lyra went to hide, in a small cupboard facing a large projection screen, and waited._

"_Has Lord Asriel arrived yet?" asked a booming voice._

"_No, Master. No word from the aerodock, either." The Butler, a voice said in his head, as if narrating the situation to him. _

_Roger, through Lyra's eyes, watched the Butler leave with a bow, and the Master look around suspiciously before pouring the contents of a small container into Lord Asriel's wine._

_Lyra whispered, "Did_

_FLASH _

_Roger was in a smaller room in the same building as before, and again the voice in his mind told him where he was, in the Master's study._

"_Good girl. Come in quickly. We haven't got long," said the Master, and Lyra entered the room._

"_Aren't I going after all?" Lyra asked._

"_Yes. I can't prevent it," said the Master. "Lyra, I'm going to give you something, and you must promise to keep it private. Will you swear to that?_

"_Yes," Lyra said._

_Roger watched the Master move to his desk and take out a small...something, wrapped in some kind of cloth. The Master unfolded the cloth, and Roger was very surprised when he saw it was made of gold and crystal. It looked like a huge compass._

"_What is it?" Lyra asked._

"_It's an alethiometer. It's one of only six that were ever made. Lyra, I urge you again: keep it private. It would be better if Mrs. Coutler didn't know about it. Your uncle—"_

"_But what does it do?"_

"_It tells you the truth. As for how to read it, you'll have to_

_FLASH _

_Roger was aboard a ship. An old man sat next to Lyra, the alethiometer was laid out across Lyra's lap._

"_What's Mrs. Coulter doing now?" asked the old man. Farder Coram, he knew. "Tell me what you're doing."_

"_Well, the Madonna is Mrs. Coulter, and I think my mother when I put the hand there, and the ant is busy—that's easy, that's the top meaning; and the hourglass has got time in it's meanings, and partway down there's now, and I just fix my mind on it. _

_Roger realized what was happening—Lyra was learning to use the alethiometer._

_Farder Coram said, "And_

_FLASH _

_Under a silver guillotine! They were going to cut Pan away! And Roger felt and sympathized with Lyra as she fought, kicked and bit, to prevent, or at least delay, that horrible moment. They caught her, forced her into a cage, Pantalaimon into another...they were about to be separated, they relived every moment they spent together..._

_FLASH _

_On top of some cliffs, watching the Aurora. Roger heard her crying for her friend, who was also named Roger._

_A man was fiddling with some instruments, complicated ones—but Roger recognized the silver guillotine, and again felt Lyra's pain as she watched her best friend fall to his death..._

_The Aurora above them, flashing. Roger could almost see a city there...and suddenly there was an explosion, and the city was right there..._

_FLASH _

_Atop a tower, fighting for a knife. A boy named Will grabbed another man's hair, to keep him from seizing the knife...Will pulled as hard as he could, and Roger knew, beyond a doubt, that Tullio could not get that knife. Will grabbed a rope, wrapped it around his left hand, and continued fighting Tullio, hoping for an opening. He found it, managed to get between Tullio and the sun, so that his antagonist was blinded. Will kicked him in the knee, and they fought hard, but not prettily. Will kicked the knife away from Tullio's outstretched hand, and the knife sank through the floor like it was butter._

_FLASH_

He was shaking, everything was shaking! He felt himself awakening, and he knew he couldn't lose those dreams. He had been so close to figuring out what he had to do, he couldn't wake up now!

He finally gave up and opened his eyes to find Matt standing over him.


	5. Roger's Soul

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**It's Not Worth It**

Chapter 5 – Roger's Soul

- - - -

Roger squinted his eyes against the seemingly blinding sun and looked up at Matt's face. _Wow, I'm sure glad he rescued me_, Roger thought. _I could've died right there, and no one would've known_...

Suddenly Roger realized something, and asked, "How did you survive that avalanche? I called your name and looked for you, but I couldn't find you anywhere."

"Ok, I know this is kind of hard for you to believe, but the witches rescued me. I was barely conscious when I saw some witches up in the sky, with black robes and broomsticks and everything. I figured I was hallucinating and I blacked out, but when I woke up I was lying in the snow surrounded by witches."

"I saw some witches in the sky! So they were really—"

"Yeah," replied Matt. "They performed a spell on me, and it helped me recover. They told me I was the first human they had seen in this place, and when I told them I was traveling with you and Ryan, they took me to you. And then they flew us here, and flew away. You just now woke up."

Suddenly Roger remembered his dream. "Oh yeah, I had this weird dream while I was unconscious. There was this girl, Lyra, and I kind of...followed her, as she did all these important things. She was given this machine that looked like a big compass, but it was made out of gold. The Master, the person that gave it to her, called it something...I can't remember, thometer or something. Then I watched her learning to read it, and then there was a big guillotine that was about to cut away her daemon. But I guess it didn't, because next thing I know she was on top of a snow-covered cliff, trying to save her friend's life. And another, older man had this machine, and he kept fiddling with the knobs on it...he opened a window with it, Matt. Like the one we came through to get here. Then there was another kid, fighting an almost-grown man, and the man had a knife. I don't know if the kid survived, but he was a good fighter."

Next thing I know, you were shaking me awake. I keep thinking that if I finished that dream, I would figure out what caused star sickness, and what we needed to do."

"Oh man, I'm so sorry," responded Matt. "That's kind of a lot to take in, though. So maybe machines like the one that the older man used made that window we came through. But how would a dream about a girl help us find out how to cure star sickness?"

"No idea," Roger mumbled. He was gradually becoming more and more awake, and he realized, _Sunlight? Wait, weren't we just in that place with the endless blizzard? And where's Ryan? I was carrying him when I blacked out._ To Matt he said, "Where are we? Is Ryan here too?"

"Oh," said Matt, "well, we're a little ways north of that place where we lost our daemons. And Ryan's still unconscious, over there." He pointed to a spot in the snow a few feet away from them, where Ryan was lying. "But the witches performed a spell on him, too—see, he's starting to wake up."

And he was. Ryan was groaning and struggling to sit up in the snow. "Ohhh..." he groaned. "Where are we? Wait, are we out of that horrible place?"

"Yeah," said Matt. "The witches rescued us." And he proceeded to tell Ryan just what he had told Matt, about the witches finding Matt in the snow, and how they flew Roger, Ryan, and Matt out of the blizzard.

"Wait," said Ryan. "If we're out of that place, then shouldn't our daemons be somewhere around here?"

"Hadn't thought of that," said Matt. "Well, maybe they're close by. We should—"

Suddenly Roger felt a tugging at his heart, but this was comforting, not painful like when they had entered the place without daemons. "Did you feel that?" he asked.

"Yeah..." Ryan and Matt both replied.

"D'you think that's...our daemons?" Ryan asked.

"Must be," said Roger, "I've never felt like that before."

"Me neither," said Matt. "But how do we know which way to go?"

"It's **your** daemon, isn't it?" asked Ryan. "So just try and feel which way to go, then start walking. That's the best we can do now. Our daemons should be together, at least, so that should make finding them easier," he finished.

Roger tried what Ryan had said, and although he doubted it would work, suddenly he felt another tug at his heart, which left no doubt in his mind that he had chosen the right direction. He motioned for his friends to follow him, and they set off towards the east, calling, "Daemons!" every now and then in case they were nearby. It seemed wrong that they didn't even know the names of what they had lost, and as they walked, they looked back at the wall behind them, with the blizzard blowing above it, and each of them vowed to themselves never again to go through such terrible agony, no matter what. Roger felt the cold stinging at him, but he had felt much worse pain in the endless blizzard, and the calmness and rhythm of his footsteps in the snow relaxed and comforted him.

"I'm just glad that we were able to make it out of that place alive," said Ryan. "And think, if those witches hadn't passed over us right when they did, we would've all been dead by now."

"It's almost as if the witches were destined to fly overhead when they did," added Matt.

"Destiny..." said Roger. The word seemed to bring back something that Jule the shaman had said, back in the town of Olum'diaye. It seemed like a different life that Roger had been living, compared to the harsh cold and flying witches of the far North. "I remember Jule saying something about two people who were supposed to bring about the end of destiny. He said...'Nine years ago, destiny was supposed to be brought to an end, but was not due to the greed of the very people who were supposed to save us.' He told us that we were supposed to put an end to star sickness, but we're also supposed to _put an end to destiny_!"

"I remember that," Ryan replied. "But how do we find those other people, who were supposed to end destiny nine years ago? We have no idea and no clues about where to find them."

"Actually, we do," said Roger thoughtfully. "_There were two people in my dream..._"

- - - -

One of the two people in question was currently sitting in her house in Oxford, consulting an alethiometer. Lyra Silvertongue moved the familiar hands of the instrument to the correct places, and formed the question in her mind, _What can we do to save Dust?  
_  
The answer came almost immediately. _The windows must be closed.  
_  
_Is there any other way?_ Lyra questioned.

All she got in return was the same answer, _The windows must be closed_, followed by a gentle rebuke from the alethiometer for asking the same question twice. While living with Will, Lyra had plenty of time to practice the alethiometer, and now could read almost as well as she could when before Pan had settled. She could never read it as well again, she knew that, but regaining the skill by wisdom was possible and necessary. Without the alethiometer, Lyra just didn't feel complete.

Tears began to run down Lyra's eyes. The choice that she had to make seemed like something out of a nightmare, something that wasn't happening to her, until she actually read it in the alethiometer. Now she would have to tell Will, and given his behavior when Mary told him the same thing, she knew it would be one of the hardest things she would ever do. She was about to get up and leave when the alethiometer's hands began to move again. Shocked, she glanced at the message the instrument was sending her.

_Don't tell your husband,_ the alethiometer said.

- - - -

Roger began to tell Ryan of his dream, and went into even more detail this time. He explained how he had seemed to know the names of people and things without being told, like part of him already knew. "The girl's name was Lyra, and I remember it well because it was such a weird name," said Roger. "She was from this world, but last I saw of her she was heading through a window, so I don't know which world she could've gone into. But our best bet is to try looking in the place where I saw her for the first time, called Jordan College. I think it was somewhere in Oxford, England, if there is even an Oxford in this world. And I don't even know the boy's name, but it looked like he was from our world, because he didn't have a daemon."

"So we'd better head back to Oferic, and try to take a boat to Oxford," said Matt. He unfolded the map that Jule had given them. It looked like Oferic was almost to the due north of England, maybe a little to the northwest. "From there we'll ask around, try to find this Jordan College place," he said. "Even if she's not there anymore, maybe they could tell us where she is now."

"But first we have to find our daemons," said Ryan thoughtfully. They had been walking to the east as they talked, and had still seen nor felt no sign of their daemons. There weren't even any animals around.

"They've got to be here, I just felt them earlier," replied Roger. "Just keep--"

But what they should keep they never found out, because Roger, Ryan, and Matt had just sighted three snow geese that were just landing in the snow in front of them, and one had just turned into an Arctic hare.

- - - -

Mary Malone stared out of the amber spyglass from her favorite spot by the large semicircular window on the second story of Will and Lyra's house and sighed. Everything was wrong again. All three seedpod trees that were planted in Will and Lyra's backyard had died, and the Dust flow in the sky was almost completely horizontal now. Somewhere in the world of the mulefa, the trees there were dying as well. Somewhere in the strange world she had passed through to reach the world of the mulefa, the Specters once again haunted the streets. And somewhere in the world she had left behind, the government would be very confused indeed.

What was wrong with Will lately? Although Mary couldn't put a finger on it, she felt a definite change in him ever since she had told him of the Driftbreeze. Besides the expected anger and sadness, she could tell that something like a huge reluctance had come over him. Will used to be so kind, but he now had an air of defiance, like nothing in the world could keep him away from Lyra. And Lyra had said little against Will's idea. Mary had thought that at least Lyra would consult the alethiometer and tell Will what it said. But she seemed to just be submitting to him, like there was nothing she could do about it.

The Driftbreeze seemed to have overcome even Lyra's world, and was now almost as major a problem in her world as it was in Mary's own. Mary could see a person almost every day collapse from the horrible Drifts. The person's daemon always exhibited the same behavior: they would collapse before their humans did, and show no signs of waking up even after their humans recovered from the Driftbreeze. Mary wanted to do something about it, but she had only ever been afraid of one person in her life, and that was Will. She was afraid to do anything. She was just as bad as Lyra, she figured.

And Mary was getting old. She couldn't do it on her own.

- - - -

Roger and his friends stared at the now three Arctic hares standing unwaveringly in front of them.

One stepped forward slowly. "Roger, I am your daemon," she said proudly. "I don't have a name yet, because before now I had no use for one. But do you know that whenever you heard that small voice in the back of your head, telling you to"—here she smiled—"not throw all those dead skunks into the principal's office, or to leave Mrs. Biddy to her teaching, instead of scaring her to death? That was me. I am your conscience, your soul, and the only thing that sets you apart from bears, or lions, or even apes."

"Y-you were with me my whole life?" Roger asked. "And I didn't even know it?"

"Yes," said his daemon. "I am not settled yet, though. Once I am settled, you will have finished going through puberty. Then I will never change form again, and that form will be the true form of your soul."

"So you'll keep changing until I finish puberty?" Roger questioned. He was beginning to realize that everything his daemon was saying were things that he knew all along. They had just been buried deep in his mind for years, and he never bothered to think about them, because they hadn't been important then.

"Right," replied his daemon. "But listen carefully, because the others and I have a lot to tell you. First of all, however, you must name us. Let me remind you that once you name me, that will be my name forever, and it can never be changed."

Both of the other daemons stepped forward. "I am your daemon," Matt's daemon said to him. "As Roger's daemon said, you must name us, but choose well, for our names cannot be changed."

Roger realized the significance of what he was about to do, and he became a little nervous. If he chose the wrong name, it would haunt him for the rest of his life. He began to go through, in his mind, a list of possible names for his daemon. She stood confidently in the snow next to him, and she changed into a snow leopard—again Roger felt the tug at his heart—and reached out to his mind. He began to calm down, and for the first time felt his daemon's fur rub against him. These gestures helped him relax, and he was about to call out a name when Ryan began to speak.

"You're...um...Aura!" said Ryan. Matt laughed teasingly at this.

"Aura?" he asked. "What kind of name is that? I shouldn't have worried about you coming up with a cooler name for your daemon that me."

"Well, I thought it sounded cool," said Ryan. His daemon, which had also turned into a snow leopard, let out a soft growl at Matt's bullying. Surprisingly, Roger didn't feel at all threatened by this, and from the looks of it, neither did Matt. It felt natural, just something that would happen whenever a human was frustrated.

"Well, I'll call mine Callisto," said Matt confidently. "Better than Aura, I hope." The newly named Callisto lazily transformed into a polar bear and glanced at Ryan's Aura out of the corner of her eye, as if daring Ryan to say something about it.

"Callisto?" asked Roger. "What's that?"

"Oh, just a gun in Perfect Dark," replied not Matt but Callisto herself. "And one of Jupiter's moons, if I remember correctly from that new Harry Potter book." Matt looked shocked.

"I didn't even know that myself," said Matt.

"Sure you did," replied Callisto. "I just remembered it for you." Through all this Roger had remained silent, reviewing the name he had picked for his daemon. It didn't seem as cool as Callisto, but he hoped it was better than Aura. His daemon changed into a polar bear to give him confidence. "Well," he said, speaking directly to his daemon now, "your name is Mantra." His daemon nodded proudly.

"What's that?" asked Matt hesitantly, watching the polar bear standing next to Roger.

"I don't know," said Roger. "Actually, it just came to mind. Maybe Mantra knows, though."

Mantra spoke. "Yes, I do," she said. "You don't know what a mantra is, so neither do I. But you heard it first from your mother, and you've always liked how it sounded." Mantra laughed at this, but she was a polar bear, so it came out as more of a growl. Her voice turned more serious now. "Now that you've named us, we have something very important to tell you. Once you left us behind when you passed through that gate—don't worry, you couldn't have known, so we don't blame you for it—we ran into a clan of witches. At first we approached them because it looked like their daemons were inside them too, but we found out that, since witches have to make the journey through the endless blizzard—it's more of a ritual for them—they can go as far from their daemons as is necessary."

"Does that mean that we have that ability too?" asked Ryan.

"Yes, you do," replied Aura. She now took over from Mantra. "We asked the witches about star sickness, or what they call Driftbreeze in this world. What they told us kind of coincides with what you found out about Roger's dream, so listen carefully. The witch clan we saw was led by a witch named Serafina Pekkala. She actually knows of the girl Roger dreamed about, Lyra Silvertongue."

Roger's daemon, Mantra, spoke again. "All the events you saw in your dream actually happened to Lyra," she said. "The instrument you saw her reading is called an alethiometer. Serafina Pekkala's been lucky enough to see Lyra read it in person, and she told us that the instrument tells the truth, about anything you ask it. Her daemon is named Pantalaimon, and is settled as a pine marten."

"A pine what?" asked Matt. "What's that?"

"It's like a big ferret," replied Callisto. "with reddish-gold fur." She transformed to show them, then quickly reverted to his polar bear form, because she was freezing cold. "Anyway, after she traveled through that window you saw, through the northern lights, she met the boy named William Parry. The knife you saw can cut through anything, and William was able to win the fight and became bearer of the knife. Listen to me, Matt. The knife made the windows, and it is the cause of star sickness. Star sickness is actually Dust leaking out of the windows the knife made. You remember Dust, Roger. Philip told you, aboard the ship." Roger nodded. "Well, like Philip said, without Dust, daemons will wither away. And without a living daemon, a person will first faint. You see, a person can live without a conscious daemon. If the daemon simply did not exist, or was cut away, the person would probably die of shock."

"But if everything the daemon provided is gone, and the daemon is still there, the person will live. But that person will be so apathetic that they will lose even sentience. That's what it's called when something is aware of its own existence," she explained, when Roger, Ryan, and Matt looked confused. "And they will basically become like a robot, doing everything that they are told, without thinking for themselves. That's the cause of star sickness, and that's what will eventually happen to everybody in every world, unless something is done. That is, most likely, what happened to Matt while I was unconscious, and what is happening to Kyle and Jason right now."

"So can't we just find this Will and tell him to stop using the knife?" asked Roger. "Or to close all the windows?"

"That's the thing," Mantra said. "The story doesn't end there. Lyra and Will went on to become great friends, and traveled the worlds with the knife, helping to preserve Dust. But an angel—" Roger, Ryan, and Matt looked shocked, "—yes, they exist, an angel told Lyra and Will about the Dust leaking through the windows, and how they would have to close all the windows, and return to their own worlds. Well, Lyra and Will had just found out that they were in love, and so the last thing they wanted to do was return to their own worlds, apart from each other. But they did so at first, although reluctantly. However, nine years ago, Will made the decision to cut back through to Lyra's world, because he couldn't stand to be apart from her. From then on they've used the knife, assuming the angels can again take care of whatever they do to nature. But apparently that's not the case, because star sickness still plagues everyone."

"So it's like this," Callisto finished. "To save the worlds, we have to go to Will and Lyra, and tell them to again go back to their separate worlds. If they don't like it, we're probably in trouble, because Will has a knife that could take off our heads with one swipe, and Lyra can tell when we're coming through her alethiometer. This is what you were chosen to do, and this is what must be done.

And Roger, Ryan, and Matt looked at each other and their newfound daemons, and for once all of them were at a loss for words.


	6. Falling

ï»¿ ﻿

**It's Not Worth It**

Chapter 6 – Falling

- - - -

Lyra looked in amazement at the alethiometer, still wondering how it could have spoken to her without her asking a question. She knew from Mary Malone's story that the alethiometer was powered by Dust, or angels, and although she knew that the angels could probably speak to her without her first asking a question, they had never done so before until now. Why had they chosen now to speak to her this way, and what did it mean?

Before she could ponder the meaning of what had just happened further, the alethiometer's hands began to move again. Shocked, she stared at the instrument and felt the understanding seep into her, just as it had done all those years ago when she was traveling from world to world and star sickness was nothing but a bad dream.

_Listen now, Eve_, said the Alethiometer, _because our time is short. _

_What do you—_

_As we know, we are Dust, angels, bene elim, Watchers, shadows, whatever you wish to call us. A year ago some of our kind were flying between the worlds when they were pulled into one of the openings that now hang in the air.Lyra was puzzled. The alethiometer had never done anything like this before. She had always asked a question, and she had received an answer, simple as that. Never before had she carried on a conversation with it, and she hadn't even thought it possible, to tell the truth. Now she replied to what the instrument was telling her—_

_Why are you speaking to me like this? _

_Because we have to tell you this,_ said the angels, _before we all are pulled into the abyss. With us rests all consciousness, everything that makes humans separate from animals. We are what makes you sentient, aware. Without us you are nothing, and you will all soon perish. Now you must listen."_ The angel paused for a second, then continued. _There are three friends that have strayed from their home world. They come from your husband's world, where there are no daemons._

_They have come to stop star sickness and close the windows. We feel your pain, and the pain of your husband, but it must be done, or eventually all humankind will perish. Either some evil person will use those who have been stricken with Driftbreeze and make them do his or her bidding, or eventually everybody in all worlds will become ill with Driftbreeze, and without anyone to tell you what to do, you will die of thirst._

_So our final warning to you is this. These three people, these friends, must close the windows. Your husband will have to-_

Suddenly the needle on the alethiometer flicked quickly to the left, then was still. Lyra realized what had happened—the angels had been drawn into one of the windows that Will had made, and lost from the world forever.

Lyra threw herself onto her bed, exhausted from that much reading of the alethiometer, and fell asleep.

_- - - -_

_Roger was standing in an open field, surrounded by huge trees with large seedpods growing from them. Some distance away a village stood, and Roger thought he could see a herd of creatures some way off to the side. A man with a rifle silently moved in the distance, but he was getting closer, and Roger decided to try and move out of the way. As soon as he turned right, however, he saw two young people sitting in the grass a few feet away from him. They had brought a picnic lunch with them and appeared to be searching for something as they ate, the way they were looking around them. They ate slowly, clumsily, as if something was distracting them greatly. Roger recognized him from his other dreams—William Parry and Lyra! _

_Will ate the bread unmovingly, glancing around him. Finally, though, Lyra began to speak. "Will—" she said, and put a red fruit to Will's lips._ Wow, _thought Roger. _She either wants to bed him really badly, or Will's got a thing where he can't eat red fruit without the help of others...

_The former was quickly confirmed when Will and Lyra began to kiss deeply. They began to whisper together softly, then they kissed again, but deeper, and Roger strongly suspected that there was some serious tongue involved. _

_Now Roger understood how difficult it would be to separate Will and Lyra, and he feared for his life. Obviously they had been very in love. Roger understood how hard it must have been for them, parting forever after just falling in love. But that doesn't give them the right to cause such pain, thought Roger suddenly. The images of Kyle and Jason came to his mind, and he promised himself that he would close the windows, no matter how hard it would be. Roger quickly remembered the man with the rifle, and turned to look in his direction, but he was gone. In fact, Will and Lyra were gone too—and he didn't seem to be in a field anymore..._

Roger woke up to find the rain pouring loudly outside his window. He looked around him confusedly, then remembered where he was-in his room inside the Oferic Inn. His friends and he had spent the previous day traveling back to the port city, and were exhausted when they arrived back there. Roger had expected the journey to be a long one, given the time it took them to travel across the endless blizzard, but the journey around the blizzard was many times quicker than the journey through it. _I wonder what kind of spells the witches put on that place_, thought Roger.

"We were going to wake you up, but we heard you mutter something about-er-someone wanting to bed someone really badly, and something else about red fruit..." said Ryan embarrassedly.

"I had another dream about Will and Lyra," said Roger. "They were definitely in love, so Mantra and the others were right-it's going to be very hard to separate them."

"But we have to do it, right?" asked Matt.

"Yeah..." said Roger slowly, then more determinedly, "Yeah! Or else the whole human race could get star sickness..." Mantra nodded her ermine head, then groggily transformed into a calico cat. "The ferry doesn't leave until five," said Roger, "so I guess we could spend the time looking around Oferic. After all, it isn't often you're in another world!"

Roger, Ryan, and Matt spent the rest of the day looking around the large port city of Oferic. They passed fishermen casting their nets into the water, the busy port with large ships coming in and out at all times, and finally reached a sort of town square. Roger went into one of the stores, which looked a lot like a souvenir shop, and purchased a picture of a man and his daemon standing under the Aurora Borealis, with "Oferic, New Gesketechuan: Gateway to the Pole" written on it with a few of the gold coins Jule had given them for their journey.

"I bet that'll surprise anyone who doesn't believe our story," said Roger jokingly to his friends.

"Good idea," said Ryan. "I know you're just joking, but it might actually come in handy. I mean, I wouldn't believe our story if it was just told to me."

"We're going to end star sickness," said Roger. "Don't you think that will make a difference to whether people believe us or not?"

He and his friends split the remaining gold coins between themselves to use in their own world (Roger assumed correctly that they would be worth a lot of money) and continued their walking tour of the city of Oferic, stopping only to buy some lunch from a diner near the docks, until finally it was time to head for the ship to take them to England.

Roger and his friends walked slowly to the docks, looking at the city around them and wondering if it was the last time they would see it. _I hope I will live to come back here_, Roger thought. Suddenly Roger felt the huge weight of responsibility on his shoulders. _I'm the world's only hope, I have to get Will to close the windows_. His daemon Mantra, in Arctic hare form, reached out to his mind and comforted him.

_Look, Roger, we're going to do it!_ Mantra thought to him. _Will and Lyra saved the world, and they wouldn't want to see it just die off again._

"I guess you're right, Mantra," Roger whispered and looked around him. They had reached the docks! "Our ship is over there," he said to his friends, pointing directly to their left.

The ship he was pointing at looked incredibly run-down. Pieces of netting littered the deck, and the name "SS Nu'a'upapa" was barely visible on the side of the ship. There was no captain in sight, although many people had already boarded the ship. The others, however, didn't look nearly as concerned as Roger, Ryan, or Matt did; on the contrary, they looked like they had done this a million times and were even used to the Nu'a'upapa's meager looks.

As the three friends climbed aboard, they saw a man emerge from the captain's quarters. He had a long beard, and his hair looked like it hadn't been cut in ages. He smelled strongly of whiskey, and Roger had a strong suspicion that their ship would sink before it even left the Oferic docks. "Welcome aboard!" cried the very drunk captain. "Now, you wouldn't think it to look at her, but our Nu'a'upapa is a very sturdy ship." Many people, who had obviously traveled on the ship before, nodded in agreement. "And although I may seem like I've had a little to drink, I have been making this voyage all my life, and never before we left have I gone without whiskey. And our ship has never crashed!" This received some applause from the gathered crowd. Roger began to feel a little better about the coming voyage, and even got up the courage to sneak into the captain's quarters during the captain's speech and get a bottle of whiskey for him and his friends.

"And if he asks, it's Matt's fault," joked Roger, and Ryan nodded his head and laughed.

"Well," said Matt, "if we're going to save the world we might as well live it up before we do. Cheers!" Matt took a swig from his bottle of whiskey, then immediately spit it out. "Sick!" Matt cried, but a few minutes later he tried again, and managed to force it down without choking, just as Roger spotted some teenage girls walking by their part of the ship. "I'm off," said Roger, spitting out the bit of whiskey that was in his mouth. "Don't wait for me!"

And so it was that a partially drunk Roger left his friends to flirt with some girls, just as the SS Nu'a'upapa left Oferic harbor bound for Southampton, Brytain (as it was known in Lyra's world).

Lyra slept alone in her bed, while Will slept downstairs on the sofa. She had told him that she "needed some time to think" about what to do, but in reality her decision was already made. Her night was plagued with dreams of the alethiometer, and of angels being pulled into the abyss.

And the Subtle Knife, at the heart of it all, rested safely in Will's sheath at his belt, and he wasn't about to give up Lyra for anything.

- - - -

Roger opened his eyes slowly, painfully, and glanced at the clock in his room. 11:30. _Well, Ryan and Matt have already had breakfast_, he thought. Roger rubbed his hand across his face. There was something sticky there—lipstick! Well, maybe something good came of the night before. Roger couldn't remember anything.

He chanced a glance outside of his cabin, but quickly poked his head back in...he didn't remember sunlight being that bright before. _So, this is what it feels like to be hung over_, Roger thought. He groggily dragged himself in front of the mirror in his cabin. His hair was sprawled all over his face, his eyes looked sunken into his head, and, worst of all, there was a red slap mark across his face, and Roger still couldn't remember where he got it.

At least I have time for a shower, thought Roger. Since he had woken up so late, he had missed breakfast by a few hours, and lunch was still maybe half an hour away. Roger stumbled sleepily into the shower, and emerged slightly less tired, though still sensitive to light.

Roger opened his cabin door once again, but this time stepped out into the bright sunlight. He shielded his eyes and looked around him-lunch was just being laid out on the deck, and Ryan and Matt were standing by the railing, looking greedily at the food before them.

"Hey, what's up?" he called to his friends.

"Lunchtime!" Ryan yelled, beckoning Roger over. "I'm starving! Man, you look terrible," he added.

Matt, meanwhile, looked at Roger proudly and said, "Where were you last night? You came back into our cabin at about three in the morning, with lipstick on your mouth and a slap mark across your face. So you must have done something right and something wrong last night..."

"Shut up," said Roger, "and pass those rolls, I haven't even eaten breakfast yet." Roger's stomach was growling loudly, and he was feeling weak, although that could have been due to the hangover.

After Roger and his friends had eaten, Roger moved with the rest of the passengers to the railing on the stern side of the ship and looked at the waves below him. Aboard the Nu'a'upapa, with nothing around him but endless sea, Roger's quest suddenly seemed insignificant. Roger had to remind himself that the fate of the world depended on him succeeding, and if he failed he might never see the ocean again, before he came back to reality.

Mantra changed into a seagull and playfully skimmed the waves, and Roger was filled with the elation that his daemon was feeling. A sense of freedom, of the power to do whatever he wanted, without any consequences...

Roger turned around and headed back to the middle of the ship to try and find his friends. On the way, he passed a group of girls, and one of them glared at him angrily as he passed. Roger couldn't think of any reason that a girl would be angry at him...unless she was the girl that slapped him last night. As the mysterious girl passed him, he felt a sense that he had met this girl before, and not just the night before—in another world, his world. She seemed to be someone he knew from his past...but Roger couldn't remember where he could know her from.

Roger headed back to his friends. As soon as they saw him coming, they stood and moved in his direction. "Roger, there you are. Some girl was looking for you. She wanted to speak to you..." Matt trailed off, in hopes that Roger could explain what the girl wanted.

"I don't know what she wants any more that you do, Matt," Roger said confusedly. "I don't remember anything from last night...why's she want to talk to me anyway, I passed her earlier and she only glared at me."

"So you met her, then?" asked Ryan. "And she didn't say anything to you? Weird...anyway, we were thinking about going to the other side of the ship to watch the waves. What do you think?"

So a somewhat annoyed Roger turned around and headed in the direction he had just come from, this time with his friends and their daemons in tow. Once they had reached the railing, the only thing that separated them from the deep blue sea around them, Roger and his friends leaned over and stared at the waves, while Mantra, Callisto, and Aura all changed into dolphins and played in the ship's wake.

After a while, though, they got bored, and Matt pushed himself up onto the railing. "C'mon guys, there's a much better view from here. Unless you're scared, of course?"

Roger and Ryan exchanged a glance, then climbed up after Matt. Roger, filled with the playfulness and daring of his dolphin daemon, stood up on the railing to watch the daemons play in the water. "Careful Roger," said Matt. "Even I wouldn't take that risk..."

Suddenly jolted back to reality, Roger began to sit down.

It happened slowly at first, and there didn't even seem to be a reason for it. Maybe it was the excitement of his daemon, or remains from his hangover, or even a combination of both. But whatever the reason, Roger suddenly found himself falling from the railing.

At first Roger didn't even realize what was going on. But Matt's screams quickly brought him out of his stupor, and Roger had just enough time to call out to his friends before his head smacked into the water.

He was immediately hit with one of the large waves that came from the ship's wake, and his mouth filled with water. Choking, he barely managed to come up for air before he was pushed under again, this time with more force. He was almost unconscious when he felt a pressure underneath him. Suddenly, he found himself above the water, pushed upwards by his dolphin daemon.

Ryan and Matt watched in terror. They knew that when Roger's strength failed, his daemon's would also. They almost moved to tell their daemons to help Roger, but suddenly the taboo came to their minds and they were revolted at even the thought of it. Matt moved quickly to throw Roger a life preserver, while Ryan ran quickly to tell the captain to turn the boat around to pick Roger up.

Roger himself was almost unconscious by this time, and he could feel Mantra's strength fading as well. He saw a life preserver plop into the water next to him, and made a grab for it, but it was too far away, and Roger definitely didn't have enough strength to swim over to it.

Sorry, Mantra , He thought to his daemon, and surrendered to the power of the ocean.

Roger was barely aware of another presence in the water next to him. He found himself pulled above the water, and suddenly he was moving in the direction of the life preserver. He glanced weakly at his rescuer, and was shocked to find that it was none other than the girl who had glared at him earlier!

Roger was partially unconscious by this time, and so he didn't fully register what was different about this girl. But the gasps up on the deck confirmed his thoughts. Roger barely had time to let the thought run through his mind before he blacked out-

This girl had no daemon!

- - - -

"It stopped working, I swear!"

"Hang on, slow down-what stopped working?" asked Will.

"The alethiometer!" Lyra cried. "I was reading it earlier, and as I was leaving the room, the needles started to move by themselves!"

Will had spent hours watching his Lyra read the alethiometer, and never before had this happened. "What did it say?" asked Will uncertainly.

"It said-it said, 'Don't tell your husband!'" Lyra responded.

"Don't tell me what?"

"Well, I can't tell you, can I?" asked Lyra. "Look Will, we have to close the windows, and go back to our separate worlds! Don't you see? Just because we want to be together doesn't mean the world has to suffer because of that!"

"But do you really think we'd be any better off in our own worlds?" asked Will in a calm voice that Lyra was growing to hate. "I mean, when we were apart from each other for those years after I found Kirjava, we couldn't even think about anything but each other. How are we supposed to build the Republic of Heaven without each other, Lyra?"

"How can you sit there, and be so--so calm, while the world is dying around us?" Lyra was screaming now. "Don't you care, Will?"

"I guess I care about you more," Will responded truthfully.

"Well, that's your problem then!" shouted Lyra, and stomped upstairs to the bedroom that, until recently, she had shared with Will.

And Lyra began to formulate a plan...


	7. Land's End

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**It's Not Worth It**

Chapter 7 – Land's End

- - - -

Roger was in an underground cave, completely alone. He couldn't make out any of the features of the cave clearly, and it was almost as though he was having trouble seeing...

The only sound that he could make out was the rush of water. Water everywhere, all around him...and suddenly he was engulfed by the water, and it threatened to drag him out into the river that ran through the cave...but it wasn't a river anymore, it was a raging ocean, and he wasn't in a cave anymore, he was lying down on a sort of wooden structure...

Roger opened his eyes. He was lying on his back on the deck of the SS Nu'a'upapa, surrounded by his friends, worried passengers, and even the captain himself! Roger struggled to remember what happened. He fell off of the railing surrounding the ship, he knew, and had landed in the ocean, but what then?

And suddenly he remembered his rescue by the mysterious girl he had met the night before, the girl who had no daemon.

He spotted her face, apart from the crowd. It was obvious that she was considered separate from everyone else, since no one approached her or even went near her. Roger remembered how the people of Olum'diaye had treated him when they first saw he had no daemon, and sympathized with her. He glanced around at his friends, then looked back at the girl, and it was as if he was seeing her for the first time.

He took in everything about her-dark hair, blue eyes, looked to be about his age. Of course, the thing that was most obvious about her was her lack of a daemon. She must've managed to hide that somehow, maybe by pretending her daemon was shy and hiding in her jacket pocket, or saying that her daemon was away whenever anyone asked her where it was. But then Roger remembered that most daemons couldn't go very far from their humans...

When she had jumped into the ocean to save Roger, she had left her jacket behind on the deck. And since she had felt no resistance from jumping off the deck, the passengers on the ship had found out she had no daemon. That must be it.

Roger was jolted out of his thoughts by Matt's voice. "Take a picture, it'll last longer! Jeez, we're over here worried about you, and all you can do is stare at that girl?" The girl in question jumped at his voice, then looked around and blushed when she saw Roger looking at her.

"Hang on, Matt, I could've sworn I've seen her somewhere before," Roger said somewhat annoyedly. Roger tried to place her again in his mind. _Maybe I know her from school or something_, thought Roger. And suddenly, he had it! About two years before Roger and his friends had found the window, there had been a disappearance at Roger's old middle school. In fact, now that Roger thought about it, it was during the Halloween party...

And the girl that had gone missing had dark hair and blue eyes...he remembered from the posters that had been put up around the school! Roger himself had even seen the girl in class a few times, but had never noticed her before. That must be it! The girl had found the same window that Roger had come through, and made a life for herself in the world of daemons.

"You okay?" Ryan's voice this time.

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Roger impatiently. "But-hang on-do you remember that girl that went missing? When we still went to Anderson?" Anderson was the name of Roger, Ryan, and Matt's old middle school.

"Oh, yeah," said Matt. "They said she disappeared during the Halloween party, didn't they. Just like—us—" Matt began to make the connection. "Wait, are you saying that girl is Amanda Colbert? C'mon, just because that girl looks kind of like Amanda doesn't mean—"

"She has no daemon, Matt," explained Roger. "She wanted to talk to me—that must be why! She recognizes me from school! If it were me I would try and find anyone that I had known before I came into this world!" And Roger walked over to the girl, followed cautiously by Ryan and Matt. The crowd around him had begun to disperse as they realized he was all right, and the captain had moved on to steer the ship, muttering something about needing whiskey.

Roger had reached the corner of the ship where the girl was, but she just ran away, blushing furiously.

"I think she likes you, Roger," said Matt teasingly.

"Don't be stupid," replied Roger, "she's probably just embarrassed because she was the one who rescued me, and she knew me from school. I would be kind of embarrassed if it was me." As Roger said this he felt another weakness in his knees, like he was about to fall over. "And I've got to get back to the cabin, I think I still haven't gotten over that fall." After making his friends promise to bring him some dinner, Roger headed back to the cabin and fell asleep the instant his head hit the pillow.

As it turned out, Roger hadn't recovered from his fall into the ocean, and according to one of the passengers aboard ship, who claimed to be a doctor, Roger had a cold. It seemed more like pneumonia to Roger, but he figured that people in this world probably wouldn't know how to treat it anyway, and the herbs the doctor gave him made him feel slightly better, so he wasn't complaining.

Roger drifted in and out of sleep for the next few days, and whenever he was awake he was shaking with cold. Passengers that he had never even seen before brought him gifts-from small trinkets that Roger hadn't heard of to fresh catches of fish for lunch and dinner. Ryan and Matt continued to save him some of each of their meals, and although they complained halfheartedly, Roger knew they didn't mind at all, and was glad that he had such good friends.

Slowly Roger regained his health, and after about a week of the illness he could catch a glimpse of what he was told was Eireland when he found the strength to go up on deck. After a second week he was almost completely better, and now he could see the monstrous shape of England on the port side of the ship.

After they had been sailing for about two and a half weeks, Roger woke up early one morning to find himself full of strength. He had never felt so good before in his life! He decided to go up on deck and have a look around before breakfast.

When he reached the top of the ship he was shocked at what he saw. The ship's deck was covered in fog, and he could see barely anything. Hopefully the captain's instruments wouldn't fail, or the ship could crash!

Roger put himself together. The ship wouldn't crash. The captain had said himself that it had gone on many journeys without even a small crash. Relieved, Roger went to sit on the railing at the stern of the ship, and waited.

Before long he heard the sounds of other passengers stirring below him in their cabins. Soon he was joined by Ryan and Matt. Together they sat on the railing, Roger reliving his fall from that very spot only two and a half weeks ago. Mantra, Aura, and Callisto changed into seagulls and soared high above their humans' heads.

They watched as the passengers below them slowly came up to their end of the ship, congratulated Roger on getting well again, then headed off to breakfast. Roger felt kind of like a celebrity aboard the ship, and he basked in the attention until finally everyone but Roger, his friends, and the mysterious girl had vacated the stern of the ship.

Roger made no move to approach the girl again, as it was obvious that she didn't want to talk to him, so Roger and his friends decided they'd better head off to breakfast.

But before Roger could reach the middle of the ship, he heard someone cry out, "The captain's got Driftbreeze! Man the lifeboats!"

Roger knew what that meant, and turned to run for the lifeboats. But before he could reach one, he heard a sickening crunch, then the creaking of wood on wood. The whole bow of the ship had been totaled, and the parts that had survived were sinking fast.

Roger felt himself thrown into the air, although he was only partially aware of it. He landed in the cold ocean, shaken but not yet hurt badly. Roger felt a burst of adrenaline hit him, and he somehow found the strength to swim away from the now-sinking ship. He thought he saw Matt jump off the other side of the ship, but there was no time to take a look-the stern of the ship was going to land right on him when it sunk!

Roger spotted a small coastline in the distance and had begun to swim toward it when he saw Ryan and Matt a little ways away from him. They were supporting something between them, and looked to be okay.

They called out to Roger, and he swam to them. "Did-anyone else survive?" asked Roger testily.

"We don't know," said Ryan. "We felt the shaking and decided we didn't want to stay long enough to find out. Most of the people were in the bow eating breakfast, though, so—" He didn't need to finish. Roger understood.

Roger composed himself and asked, "What's that you're holding?"

"This," Matt replied, "is Amanda Colbert. She was knocked unconscious when the ship crashed, but we found her lying in the water."

"And you picked her up?" asked Roger.

"What were we supposed to do, leave her there?" asked Ryan. "We tried to wake her up, but it was no use. She'll slow us down a little bit, but we can still probably make that coastline." Ryan pointed in the direction that Roger had been looking earlier.

They began to swim toward the coastline, slowly but steadily. Eventually their daemons turned into dolphins and carried them in the direction of the beach. Night began to fall just as Roger, who was helping to carry Amanda, stumbled ashore. Roger and his friends laid her down in the sand, then began to talk among themselves.

"What are we going to do about food and shelter?" asked Ryan. "Our map and the gold that Jule gave us were left behind in our cabin on the ship."

"Well, we're probably not too far from Oxford anyway," replied Roger. "On the map Oxford is around the middle of England, and we're probably on the west coast. So if we get food-somehow-we should be able to make it easily. And it won't matter about having no way to get out of England—if we can get Will to close the windows, he can send us back to our own world, and we can call our parents collect or something and get back home."

"Well, I'm tired," said Matt. "I'm going to sleep." Roger and Ryan yawned and decided to do the same. As Roger drifted off to sleep he began to think about the ship again, and all the people who were eating breakfast. They didn't even know they were going to die—they had no warning—

It all came back to Will and Lyra, Roger decided. Their greed caused all those people's deaths...tore apart their families' lives...

- - - -

When Roger awoke the next morning, he was confused at first to where they were. Roger had subconsciously walked in the direction in which the breakfast buffet would be on the ship before he realized where he was, and once he did all the memories of the day before came flooding back. The wreck of the ship floating in the water—all those people's faces, frozen forever in time, calmly eating their breakfasts, unaware of what would happen to them seconds later...

Roger turned and began the short walk back to the lonely sandbar where his friends and he had camped the night before. He had some questions he needed to ask Amanda Colbert, if she was really Amanda. Unanswered questions, about the time she had been missing from Redwood, and what she had done in this world. Maybe she knew something about this world that would help them find Will and Lyra, or even Oxford.

By this time Roger had made it back to the spot on the beach where he had fallen asleep. He could see Ryan and Matt still sprawled in the sand, fast asleep. Something was missing, though...

Amanda Colbert was gone, and Roger didn't know where she was.

Roger quickly ran over to Ryan and started shaking him, then did the same to Matt. They both reluctantly came awake, and Matt vaguely grumbled, "What, the monkeys aren't coming until Thursday..." until he finally stood up and stretched. Ryan wouldn't get up and had to be prodded awake by a Labrador retriever-formed Aura. His friends looked at him questioningly, and Matt mumbled, "What is it?"

"It's Amanda, she's gone!" exclaimed Roger. "I...went for a walk...and when I came back she wasn't here. We've got to find her!"

"Calm down, man," said Ryan easily. "You just went for a walk, right? So maybe she did too. Relax, she'll turn up."

But Matt didn't look as relaxed. "Look, Roger, maybe we should look for her. I get the feeling anything can happen in this world..."

"Alright," Roger said, "let's split up then. Everybody remember where this spot is?" Ryan and Matt nodded. "Okay, then we'll meet back here in an hour, less if we find her. Agreed?" They nodded again.

"Okay," said Ryan. "Let's go."

Roger looked, really looked for the first time at the vast expanse of cliffs all around him. He was standing at the foot of a sheltered bay. Slightly eroded white cliffs stood to his left, and on his right was a gradual incline covered in trees. He watched Matt head to his left to comb the beach, and Ryan head up the rocky path to the cliffs. That left the forest for him; he headed in the direction of the path to the forest.

A half hour later, Roger had reached the top of the incline and was now searching among the trees. So far, however, he had had no luck, and he could hear the loud rumble of his stomach through the sounds of birds calling all around him. He hadn't eaten in a day, and he would've done anything for some food around then.

He gazed up at the canopy of trees above him and noticed that there were small red berries growing from their branches! Excited at the prospect of food, he turned to his daemon. "Mantra, could you turn into a bird and knock that down for me?" he said, pointing at a large clump of the red berries growing in a tree above him. His daemon nodded, changed into a bird that Roger hadn't seen before, and flew up to the berries. Mantra then swooped at the berries, grasped them in her talons, and dropped them at Roger's feet before flying back to him and perching on his shoulder.

"Not bad, Mantra," he said, impressed. She grinned (although this looked pretty weird on a bird), and Roger plucked a berry from the bunch. "What d'you think, Mantra, are these okay to eat?" he asked her, and without waiting for a response, plucked one into his mouth. Nothing happened, so he ravenously tore into the bunch of berries. Well, that's good to know, thought Roger, these berries are edible. Once he had finished and his stomach had calmed down, he continued on his search for Amanda, walking in different directions but leaving his daemon behind. If he got lost, Mantra could tell him which way to go.

She wasn't in the clearing on his left, nor was she straight ahead in a large clump of trees. The only place left was on his right, which led to some larger cliffs and inclines. Roger doubted that Amanda could have made it this far, but he set off again, telling himself that if she wasn't there he could go back and see if Matt or Ryan had found her.

Hurry up , said Mantra to him. It's almost time to go back. 

Roger raced up the path to the cliffs that stood high above him, through the trees and out into a large opening. The path became very rocky now, and he could see, stretched far below him, the bay that he and his friends had spent the night in. The drop was very far, and if he fell, it would probably kill him...

_Calm down_, he told himself. _Amanda could starve if we don't find her._

He continued up the path of rocky cliffs. There were no trees around him now, nothing but the smell of the ocean and the sunbathed cliffs around him. He could feel the gusts of wind in his face as he made his way to the top.

Okay , said Mantra, it's time to go back. Roger was about to agree when suddenly he saw a shape in the distance...

It was a person! And that person was standing at the top of the highest cliffs, which looked almost unreachable. But that wasn't right, Roger thought suddenly, because whoever that is got up there somehow...

Hang on, he told Mantra. I see someone. Make your way back and tell the others that I'm okay, and find out if they've seen Amanda. I'll try and reach whoever this is. 

He felt Mantra's agreement and the sudden emptiness as she left the spot he had last seen her. He could feel something in the air in this place-not a physical quality, more like an electrical charge, like anything could happen there—and it gave him confidence. Now he had to try to reach those cliffs...

He climbed up the path until he reached the cliff next to the one the person was on. Now that he could get a closer glimpse, he could tell that the person was definitely Amanda. And he realized how she had reached the higher cliff—a series of rocks jutted out of the cliff in front of him, kind of like the rock climbing wall back in Redwood. Roger could climb it with ease-but he wouldn't die if he fell off the one in his hometown. This was real.

Roger started climbing shakily, moving his hand, then his foot, over and over again until he reached the top. When he finally made it, he pulled himself over the rock wall and found himself staring right into the face of Amanda Colbert.

"Hi," she said. "Just went for a walk..."

"What d'you mean, 'just went for a walk'?" asked Roger angrily. "You scared us half to death, we thought you'd died...or...something...wait, what am I saying? I sound just like my mom..."

Amanda giggled and motioned Roger over to the center of the cliff she had been standing on. "When I first went through that window behind our school into this world, I was scared to death. I managed to get a part-time job working in a restaurant in Olum'diaye, and while I brought people's orders they would tell me stories. You get a lot of adventurous types coming through Olum'diaye—they call it the gateway to the North—and I heard tons of legends. But one I heard most often..." She glanced around and pointed at the cliffs all around them. "...told of a mystic place called Land's End, on the southwestern edge of Brytain. One day we got a famous explorer in there, and he told me all about it in between courses. It seems that it strengthens people's spiritual energy."

"Spiritual energy?" replied Roger. "Well, I guess anything's possible in this world...you mean spiritual like your daemon?"

"I don't know," said Amanda. "But don't you feel that special charge in the air, too? Like the whole place is filled with electricity?"

"Yeah, I felt that!" exclaimed Roger. "So it's not just me...but I don't feel like anything's strengthened right now. I just feel hungry..."

"Yeah, you're right," said Amanda. "I don't know what we're supposed to do...sorry, you must think I'm useless, the way I lead you all the way over here and then don't know what to do..." She moved and sat down on the further away of the two rocks in the center of the cliff, her face in her hands.

"No, it's not your fault," said Roger. "I didn't know anything, you know more than me about this place..." And he automatically moved to comfort her, taking a seat on the other rock. "Look, you saved my life before. There's no way you're useless, you've done tons more for me than I have for you. All I did was try and find you...hey, I've done more stupid things on this journey that anyone, and I'm still okay."

Amanda looked at Roger and smiled slightly. "Thanks," she said. They just sat there for a while, staring at the scenery around them. The huge bay in which they had landed the night before stretched out in front of them, while on the left and right trees covered the huge white cliffs all around them.

And then at the same time, although it had been meant to happen since they were born, they touched hands.

Suddenly the cliffs and bay were shrouded in darkness. A huge storm was moving towards them—lightning struck between clouds, and the sky darkened to night, giving the storm a magical quality. Roger and Amanda stared at each other, fearfully at first, then more comfortably as curiosity set in. They stared at the storm, which was now directly above them. Suddenly they felt a great anticipation all throughout them, and just as suddenly jagged lightning struck them both. Roger thought that it must be hurting him, somehow, but he couldn't feel anything.

Roger and Amanda never took their eyes off of each other as the mysterious lightning drew them into the air, until they were level with each other but a few feet apart. Roger and Amanda felt a tingling all throughout their bodies, and suddenly a bolt of electricity formed between them. Roger's mind was flooded with thoughts—it was as though he was reliving his whole life, except in reverse. As the last memory came into head, he suddenly forgot it all, everything, except what was happening right then, the lightning and Amanda and the storm, and he was content with just that.

Roger could see an electrical field forming around Roger and Amanda. Suddenly a bolt of lightning shot from Roger straight at Amanda, and to his surprise he could see something similar happening to her. The bolt of lightning from Amanda hit him in the head, and suddenly a new set of memories replaced his old ones.

Roger didn't know how long Amanda and him stayed there, suspended in the air by the magical storm, reliving each other's lives. When he looked at Amanda he could see her happiness when Roger had a happy memory, and her sadness when something bad happened in his life. Roger did the same thing with Amanda's memories-loving the feeling the first time she rode a bike, her sadness when her grandmother died-until finally the memories ended and right now began, and he felt everything she felt and she could read his thoughts, and their eyes never left each other the whole time.

Finally, after what seemed like years, the lightning bolts reversed, and each person gained their memories again. Slowly they floated back down to the ground, and when their feet touched the ground Amanda raced towards Roger, and they shared their first kiss there on the warm rocks of Land's End, and it seemed like nothing would ever matter again.

Roger was jolted back to reality by a message from his daemon. Roger, hurry up! Ryan and Matt are wondering what the hell is going on. 

Slowly, reluctantly, Roger and Amanda turned and headed back towards the spot on the beach where they had promised to meet up, wondering what to say to their friends.


	8. Resolution

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**It's Not Worth It**

Chapter 8 – Resolution

- - - -

_"Her hands were resting on his glossy fur. Somewhere in the garden a nightingale was singing, and a little breeze touched her hair and stirred the leaves overhead. All the different bells of the city chimed, once each, this one high, that one low, some close by, others farther off, one cracked and peevish, another grave and sonorous, but agreeing in all their different voices on what time it was, even if some of them got to it a little more slowly than others. In the other Oxford where she and Will had kissed good-bye, the bells would be chiming, too, and a nightingale would be singing, and a little breeze would be stirring the leaves in the Botanic Garden._

_'And then what?' said her daemon sleepily. 'Build what?'_

_'The Republic of Heaven,' said Lyra."_

- - - -

Lyra and Pantalaimon hardly slept at all during that night, and many nights to come. Complex plans formed in her mind as to how she could make Will stop using the Subtle Knife, then broke off as she realized ways that all of them could fail. Finally, after about a week and a half of this, she made the decision to go with the simplest plan in her head, and one she had deemed too simple to use. But it had the best chance of working.

So it was that Lyra dragged herself out of her room on the 11th day of this to meet Will at the breakfast table.

"So, speaking to me again?" he asked harshly, Kirjava purring slightly out of frustration.

"Yes, look Will, this argument was really stupid," responded Lyra ashamedly. "We should just forget it, after all our love is probably worth more than some stupid knife."

Will looked at her suspiciously. "Really? Just yesterday you had yourself all barricaded up in your room, and I get the feeling you would've told anybody you could talk to about what an asshole I was." He took a sip of his morning coffee, and glanced down at the Sunday paper lying open in front of him. "God, another story about the Driftbreeze," he mumbled, then threw the paper away angrily.

But it was time for Lyra to demonstrate the skill that had earned her the name Silvertongue, and although she had never thought of lying to Will, it was really as easy as it had been many years ago, in an ice fortress on Svalbard. "Yes, Will, really I'm sorry. I never meant for things to get that out of control...I guess I didn't love you enough, forgot that we sacrificed everything for each other." She took a deep breath and continued. "Will, listen-I'm really sorry. From the bottom of my heart. Can you forgive me?"

Will looked at her pouting face, the amber eyes just as beautiful as they had been when she burst out of the door in Cittagazze, and he smiled. "Lyra, I might get angry at you, but I can never stop loving you. You know that. Now, d'you want to-" and he pointed at the stairs leading to their bedroom upstairs.

"But of course," said Lyra mischievously. "We just made up, didn't we?" Pantalaimon, meanwhile, was rubbing himself against Kirjava suggestively, distracting Will, playing with his feelings. Will simply grinned and took Lyra's hand, leading her upstairs. He didn't even glance back until he reached the bedroom, and that was when he noticed that Lyra was gone. Confused, he looked around, and out of habit felt for the subtle knife at its sheath on his belt.

His hand hit the sky-metal sheath. The knife was gone.

- - - -

Roger and Amanda slowly made their way back to the spot on the beach where their friends were waiting, savoring every moment they had left alone with each other. Still wanting to test their newfound love for each other, they reluctantly stepped down from the mountains, only to be met immediately by a very angry Matt and Callisto. Roger's daemon Mantra stood to the side, accompanied by a sky-blue bird for which nobody had a name.

The bird spoke directly to Amanda. "I am your daemon," he said, "and until that lightning storm, I wasn't even aware I existed. The magic of Land's End tore me from your heart." Roger looked at Amanda, and knew she was feeling the exact same thing he had felt in that valley in the North of this same world. "I had no need for a name before, but you must name me now. Just remember that whatever you name me will be my name forever, so choose well."

Amanda looked at Roger as if wanting a suggestion, but Roger just shrugged and put his arm around her. Her daemon looked straight into her eyes.

"Fine," said Amanda jokingly, "leave me all alone here, then. I guess I'll call you—Terra. It means 'land', which I guess is kind of weird because you're a bird, but I don't know anything else..."

"Terra," said her daemon, trying the name out. "I like it."

"It's great," said Roger. "Perfect."

Reassured, Amanda glanced at her daemon, and he flowed into her arms.

"Sorry to interrupt the reunion, guys," said Matt sarcastically, "but we were kind of waiting for you for three hours, without any word from you except what that daemon of yours said, and we need to know what's going on."

Roger sighed, looked at Amanda, and rolled his eyes. She giggled.

And so Roger explained everything that had happened on the rocky cliffs of Land's End, from his first encounter with Amanda, to that fateful storm, to their falling in love. When they were done, Matt stood in silence for a few seconds, then said, "Well, I guess it's time to get back to Ryan and that Aura or whatever. We found a new window while we were looking around, did you know that? We left Ryan by it so we won't forget where it is."

And so they walked in silence along the beach, staring up at the cliffs that towered high above them, Roger and Amanda not taking their eyes off of each other the whole time. It began to rain, small drops at first, then big ones, which caused them to take bigger steps, until they fell into a kind of jog towards the spot where they had left Ryan. When they had almost reached the spot where Ryan was, Roger and Amanda gave him the slip, their daemons scampering behind them as wolves. "We'll find it later," said Roger, as Amanda began to kiss him again. "It doesn't really matter, does it?"

"No," Amanda mumbled, half-giggling as their lips touched once again. "They'll find us, anyway. Let's save that for when we get to it."

Roger didn't know how long he and Amanda sat there, the rain pounding on top of them, barely sheltered by a thin canopy of trees, but not caring as their lips met again and again. All he would remember was their wolf daemons suddenly walking up to their humans, and looking shyly at each human's lover. Roger's turned into a dog, not a servile puppy, but a sleek, powerful golden retriever. Amanda's Terra remained a wolf, although he became gray with white streaks around the ears.

And before they knew it, as though they had meant to do it all their lives, Roger raised his hand and stroked Terra, and he could see Amanda reach across him to run her hand over Mantra's golden fur. It felt right, and Roger immediately took Amanda in his arms and kiss her harder, as the streaks of rain fell all around them, and a furious Ryan and Matt scoured the trees for them, and they didn't care about any of it.

- - - -

Lyra Silvertongue was in a hurry.

She made her way to the bench in the Botanic Garden where she and Will had departed the first time, and where she had first realized that they could still see each other, and where Will made the decision to come and get her in her world, nine years ago. Going on ten, actually. What day was it again? Lyra glanced at her watch.

And for the first time, realized the magnitude of what she was doing. The hands ticked around the watch innocently, but she read the symbolism as if it had hit her in the face.

It was five minutes before noon on Midsummer's Day.

- - - -

Mary Malone looked out her window once again with the Amber Spyglass and was shocked at what she saw. It was as if history was repeating itself-the Dust once again fell in great volleys straight down from the sky, and she could picture the mulefa's joy as they realized what had happened, and she thanked the fate that had brought the newest young lovers together.

Suddenly, she saw a figure slip out of the house, holding a knife. 'Lyra?' she wondered. But she didn't have enough time to think about it, and she saw another, larger figure slip out after her. Quickly, she pocketed the spyglass and ran after Will, towards the Botanic Garden.

- - - -

Lyra took a deep breath and went into a trance. She had last used it that day in her room when she had first realized how much the Dust leakage had hurt the world, but on a different instrument.

She had once told Will that the trances used to read the alethiometer and to use the subtle knife were very similar. Well, now she was going to use that knowledge to her advantage.

She reached her mind out to the knife tip, very gently so as not to disrupt the process. She was surprised at how easy it was, and even more surprised when she found herself accidentally cut a window.

Cursing the knife, she tried again, and this time had barely brought her mind to the knife tip when the memory of what she and Will had done to the world with the knife came to her, and the knife jarred and shattered into a million pieces on the ground. She had just begun to sweep up the pieces when Will appeared. He was followed closely by Mary Malone, who looked nervous and hopeful all at the same time.

"I've already done it," said Lyra, "so don't bother stopping me. It's over."

"I know it is," said Will sadly. "And I did a lot of thinking on the way here. If you couldn't break it, I would've. Because your love for me is a million times more important than some stupid knife, and I should've realized that ten years ago."

And before she could do anything about it, he kissed her deeply, and, leading Mary Malone behind him, stepped through the window she had accidentally opened, and closed it behind him.

- - - -

Roger sat drinking a Coke and talking to Matt and Ryan, ignoring the loud music blasting all around them. He wanted to talk about their journey, and this was the first time his parents had let him out of the house since he had returned.

He heard someone shout his name, and looked straight ahead of him to find Amanda beckoning him to come dance with her. Sighing obviously, he rolled his eyes at her friends jokingly and ran up to her. Mantra, Aura, Callisto, and Terra sat in a back room talking amongst themselves. Even though people in Roger's world couldn't see them, he thought it would be a bit awkward if someone who was dancing suddenly bumped into an invisible golden retriever or wolf.

Jason and Kyle stood leaning against the refreshment stand and raised their Cokes in a mock toast to Roger as he approached his girlfriend. Grinning, they began to dance.

Roger never wanted it to end.

**- - The End - -**

- - - -

Ok, first of all, it was lots of fun writing this story. And I haven't totally abandoned trying to become a writer when I grow up. But most likely I won't, and most likely this is going to be one of my last times posting on this site. Anyway, ever since school started it's been pretty hard updating this story, and soon it'll be almost impossible, so I'm going to take a leave of absence from writing for a while. I don't think a sequel really fits this story, except maybe telling what Roger and Amanda's lives are like together, but there wouldn't be much action in there.

No, I think I'm going to stop the idea of It's Not Worth It here, because it seems like a fitting place to end the story. I'd like to thank every one of my reviewers as well; without my reviewers I never would've learned as much as I did while writing this story. Being my first, it taught me a lot about writing, mostly to include more description and slow down every now and then.

Anyway, this is my final revision of the Author's Notes and Credits portion of the story, and I have received a lot more readers since my last post, so I've decided to leave a brief summary of all that happened throughout the story, in case someone doesn't understand it all.

The story begins two years after Lyra and Will parted in Cittagazze, and they are both making their way to the Botanic Gardens for their yearly visit. While there, they accidentally discover the way that the angels spoke about of traveling through the worlds ("like imagination, but much truer"). This shocks Will enough that he vows to do whatever it takes to see Lyra again, and so he repairs the knife and cuts through to Lyra's world, making his way to Jordan College, although how he got there I'm not quite sure. XD

Anyway, it's a few years later, and a kid named Kyle is setting off for his first day of ninth grade and high school in Redwood, California. We find out that he's a member of a group of prankster friends, and that one of his best friends is named Roger. Then, while he's making his way to Algebra I, he passes out (a completely understandable action, except that he wouldn't wake up even when presented with free pizza). We then switch to Roger's point of view as he and his best friends, Ryan and Matt (who are actually based on my former best friends while I wrote this story), find out about Kyle's fainting spell. The US government freaks out, although they don't bomb anyone, so Bush must now be out of office (ZING!), and labels the mysterious illness "star sickness", because the victim's consciousness seems to just float up into the stars. Roger decides to lighten the atmosphere by playing a prank (why not?) on his English teacher, based on my 8th grade English teacher, who really WAS that dumb (she handed out the books our test was over, passed out the test, then went to the teachers' lounge for 30 minutes). The three friends lead her into the forest conveniently located behind their school (incidentally the place where a fellow student disappeared some years ago), then abandon her, but as Roger asks Matt, who was carrying the map, how to get back, they find that Matt's passed out.

While looking for the way out of the forest, they encounter an opened window, which was used by Will and Lyra during their honeymoon in the port town that is the counterpart to Redwood in Lyra's world. They come out in an unfamiliar town ruled by a shaman (there is no America in Lyra's world), and there find out that they are considered freaks because of their lack of daemons. They don't know what to do next, but they hear from Jule, the shaman, that there is a place up north where they could get daemons. (Forgive me for being incredibly proud of remembering the way that witches are able to separate from their daemons.) Meanwhile, the star sickness, or "Driftbreeze" as it's called in Lyra's world, is spreading rapidly, and still no one knows the cause. That is, until one day when Mary Malone observes someone become "infected" with the Driftbreeze through the amber spyglass. She notices that the Dust is sucked out of the person (because the open windows are causing Dust to flow into the abyss) and that the daemon becomes unconscious long before the human. For that's what the Driftbreeze does-knocks out the daemon, which is "the only thing separate humans from animals" according to Pullman. And the only thing separating humans from animals is free will-sentience. When the victims of the Drifts/star sickness wake up, it is found that this is true-they seem to have lost their sentience.

Meanwhile, Roger, Ryan, and Matt board a ship headed for the North and make their way to the mysterious witches' place, Ryan and Roger carrying the still-unconscious Matt on a stretcher. As they pass through the gateway to the place, all of their daemons are torn from their hearts, similar to what happened to Will and Lyra upon entering the world of the dead. The shock jolts Matt's daemon back into consciousness, thus snapping him out of the "star sickness". Together, the friends make their way through the witches' place, but Ryan falls unconscious and Matt is lost in an avalanche, leaving Roger to carry Ryan out the exit. But when he's almost there, he falls unconscious due to fatigue and cold. While asleep, he has visions of Lyra and Will, the cause of the star sickness. He wakes to find himself staring into Matt's face; Serafina Pekkala's clan, in a prime example of artistic license, also happened to be traveling through the desolate place, and rescued Matt when they saw him about to be buried by the avalanche.

The three friends, now all conscious but missing their souls, begin to search for their daemons. They find them while wandering the North and name them: Roger's is Mantra (a repeated statement designed to breed hope), Ryan's is Aura (the imaginary field around everyone that has something to do with their personality), and Matt's is Callisto (he describes pretty well my thought process behind that, actually: I was really into Perfect Dark at the time). Their daemons tell them what they have to do: make Will stop cutting windows, close the existing ones, and go back to his own world. Will and Lyra have an argument with Mary as she tries to tell them the same thing, and the two lovers refuse to stop seeing each other.

Roger, Ryan, and Matt realize that they have to make their way to Oxford, England, if they want to stand any chance of stopping star sickness before it overcomes the worlds. They board a ship headed out from the North. Roger sees a girl that looks vaguely familiar to him, and he eventually recognizes her as Amanda Colbert (a name taken word-for-word from a book called Breathing Underwater), the girl who went missing from Roger's school years earlier. Roger, in a blatant display of teenage hormones, had gotten drunk the night before on the captain's whiskey and engaged in some R-rated activities with Amanda which he didn't remember. In another excellent use of artistic license, the captain gets Driftbreeze, causing the ship to crash, and the three friends are thrown into the ocean, Matt barely managing to rescue Amanda from certain death.

The foursome make their way to the southwestern coastline of Britain, landing at a place called Land's End (which actually exists). The next morning, Roger awakes to find Amanda missing. He and his friends begin a frantic search that ends with Roger finding Amanda atop some cliffs. She tells him of legends that Land's End holds a great magical power. In by far the greatest display of artistic license yet, when Roger reaches out to take Amanda's hand, a magical lightning storm begins, causing both Roger and Amanda to relive each others' lives (an easy way to get them to fall in love, which is precisely what I needed to do at this point). When they finally make their way back, they are met by an irate Matt, who tells them that they need to get back and that Matt and Ryan had found a convenient window back to their own world. Amanda meets her daemon, Terra (Earth), which was torn from her heart by the magic of Land's End.

While Matt is leading Roger and Amanda back to the window, they give him the slip and engage in a heavy make-out session, touching each other's daemons in the process and causing history to repeat itself. The Dust once again is rerouted and now falls straight downwards, making the Driftbreeze right again. Meanwhile, Lyra is fed up with Will's stupidity and steals the knife, planning to break it. Will realizes what a dumbass he has been and goes after Lyra, taking the knife from her, returning to his own world, and closing the window behind him. The angels (coughartisticlicensecough) close the rest of the windows aside from the one leading out of the world of the dead, thus making things right again. KaiserMonkey breaths a deep sigh of relief that that's over with, posts this, then goes out job hunting.

I leave you with some tips here on how I managed to pour out 24000 words about another book-

Remember in that epilogue/author's notes part at the end of the Amber Spyglass, where Pullman says he's stolen tons of ideas from other writers? Well, now I know exactly what he means. The first idea for star sickness came from some crappy old book named Starbright and the Dream Eater, which I read about a year ago now. In that book there was "Spindle Sickness" where people would fall asleep and never wake up, just become lost in their own dreams forever. So I just stole the "sickness" part and applied it to HDM, and that was pretty much it...

Also, I first got the idea for the Land's End chapter from the old Super Nintendo game Earthbound. Originally Roger and Amanda were going to the world of Roger's mind, and he would have to defeat some bad inner part of himself to get out. Then he and Amanda would fall in love, etc., and go kick Will's ass in a battle for the subtle knife. But that goes to show how ideas change, right? This seemed like a better idea, but the original Land's End idea was stolen from a place called Magicant in Earthbound, which is pretty much the world of Ness (the main character)'s mind, and he has to defeat a monster called Ness's Nightmare to get out.

That's another tip-don't be afraid to abandon your outline completely in the middle of writing your story. In the original idea for this story, Roger & friends were going to go to the witches' place, get their daemons, get on a ship, make it to Oxford somehow (without crashing), and forcefully take the Subtle Knife from Will. See the difference? Amanda wasn't even in the story, and Land's End wasn't mentioned at all. But that would suck, so I had to change my ideas. Just because you already thought about a part of the story doesn't mean it's done...

Finally, never be too serious. If writing is ever not enjoyable, try not to force it. I snuck little bits of humor into my story (although they're not really that funny) everywhere, and you should try to be the same. James Jago, the author of The Silver Bird, does a great job of this. He's in my favorites, so please read his stories, they're great!

That's it, so for the last time, this is KaiserMonkey, and please review!


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